What's At Stake
by Dayna Barter
Summary: Elijah says he wants to kill Klaus.  But why?  What is this Original really up to?
1. Chapter 1

Elijah slid the cell phone back into his breast pocket and rose from the desk. Stepping across the rich Oriental carpet, he opened the French doors and walked out onto the balcony overlooking Central Park. At a quarter past 3:00 a.m., the traffic below the Manhattan penthouse had slowed to an anemic trickle, brake lights leaving the occasional crimson smear on rain-dampened streets that ran like veins through the city. Four floors below him, a television squawked out news on a 24-hour loop; seven floors down, the Wall Street trader rutted with his latest, silicone-enhanced mistress. Far below, under cover of the Park's foliage, a cry drifted up as one of the city's predators took its prey. It bothered him not – he was, after all, the city's apex predator.

So Rosemary and her craven partner wanted to meet, did they? He could imagine how the last five centuries had been for them. Never staying in any one place for long, never putting down roots or forming any lasting relationships for fear of the past they wanted desperately to outrun. The thought of them scrambling all over the globe, one eye always in the rearview mirror, amused him. Truth be told, he'd stopped caring one way or the other a couple of centuries ago. There were more pressing concerns to be dealt with than avenging himself on a couple of shiftless and scared-shitless minor vampires.

He had been sorely tempted to decline this request for a summit, save for one detail: its proposed location. A quick look on Google maps had shown the backwater locale to be just a few hours south of the town of Mystic Falls, one of the last known whereabouts of Katerina Petrova. If Trevor and Rosemary had suddenly found the fortitude to contact him, they must either have Katerina, or at the least some knowledge of her current location.

Elijah glanced down at his Rolex. If he left now, while the traffic was light, he could be in North Carolina by early afternoon. Pulling the phone from his pocket, he redialed his contact. "Tell them I'll be there tomorrow," he said, without preamble. Without waiting for a reply, he ended the call and dialed the concierge downstairs to have his car brought around.

It was close to 2:00 p.m. when the Lexus crunched down the gravel driveway at the address he'd been given. The house, once a modest mansion, stood aged and decrepit in the harsh afternoon light. Several windows were boarded up; some from the outside, some from within, indicating to Elijah the rooms most likely inhabited by the two sun-fearing vampires. He rubbed absently at the ring on his left hand that rendered such issues moot for him. Only one vehicle, an older SUV, sat in the driveway alongside his Lexus. Scanning the perimeter, Elijah noted no disturbance in the dust and the overgrowth around the property which might indicate that an ambush was imminent. He highly doubted any other vampire would put him or herself in league with these two, not against him.

Elijah exited the vehicle and climbed the front steps with an air of complete nonchalance. At his knock, he could hear them scurrying around inside like the rats that inhabited other parts of the old building. Appropriate that they sheltered here amongst the other vermin. Though perhaps he was being uncharitable toward the girl. She had only done as her sire had bid her, after all.

As Trevor should have done his bidding.

Rather than wait, Elijah pushed the door open and surveyed the scene before him. The vestibule displayed the same signs of age and decay as the exterior of the house. Mold and mildew clung to the ceiling and crept down the walls. Dust moved in lazy swirls, disturbed by the opening of the door and the rush of warm air from the outside. Several lights were lit, though some of the fixtures hung from the walls at drunken angles; one chandelier cast its light from the floor rather than the ceiling, leaning as though dazed and confused as to how it should have come to be there.

After a few moments, Rosemary crept into view. Her hair and clothes were trendy, inexpensive and informal, in sharp contrast to his $4,000 black-on-black suit, just as her nervous, fidgety energy differed wildly from his calm, calculated manner.

Elijah spoke first. "Rosemary. Is there somewhere we can talk?"

She sighed, but didn't relax. "Yes, in here. You'll have to forgive the house," she said, gesturing to a room on the left.

He allowed a patronizing smile. "Oh no, what's a little dirt? I completely understand." Elijah closed the door behind him to once again shut out the sunlight, and strolled into the room she had indicated. "So tell me, what is it that gives you the courage to call me?"

"I want my freedom. I'm tired of running. Are you in a position to grant me that?"

"I have complete authority to grant pardon to you and your little pet. What is his name these days, Trevor? If I so see fit." Pardon her for himself, anyway. They were on their own with Klaus. But he needn't tell her that.

"Katerina Petrova?"

Elijah smiled inwardly. Just as he had suspected. He turned to face her. "I'm listening."

"She didn't burn in the church in 1864." Rose announced this as though it were some great news.

Spotting a serviceable if dusty chair, Elijah sat and crossed his legs with an attitude of bored indulgence. "Continue."

"She survived."

He waited for more, but she seemed disinclined to speak without prompting. "Where is she?"

"You don't seem surprised by this," Rose said, looking down at him.

Apparently he needed to state the obvious. "When you called and invited me into this armpit of civilization, which is a mere three hours from the town we know as Mystic Falls, I surmised it had everything to do with Katerina. Do you have her in your possession?" he asked, as though he cared not what the answer was.

"No. I have better. I have a doppelganger," she announced.

_Lovely_, he scoffed to himself. A wild goose chase after all. "That's impossible. Her family line ended with her. I know that for a fact."

"Then the facts are wrong." She was looking less frightened and more triumphant. That wouldn't do.

"Well show her to me," he challenged.

"Elijah, you're a man of honor. You can be trusted, but I want to hear you say it again."

Elijah narrowed his eyes at her. "You have my word that I will pardon you." And how nice that English doesn't differentiate between the singular and plural.

"Follow me." Rose turned and walked out of the room.

Elijah waited a beat and then rose to follow her. Surely they weren't stupid enough to lure him in with this tale and then try to kill him. It would be tantamount to suicide. Down the corridor, past the fallen chandelier, up some stairs... Rose halted on a balcony to the great room. Looking down, he noted Trevor standing rigid on the periphery, but his attention went immediately to the girl.

_My God_, he thought. _This can't be_. He sped down the stairs and halted in front of her. That same face, those same dark eyes looked up at him, terror plain in them and in the rigid lines of her body. Her heart was beating so hard he half expected it to take wing and fly out of her chest altogether. Lowering his head, he scented her breath, smelled the blood hammering frantically just under her skin, and rocked back, inwardly reeling. "Human," he breathed. "It's impossible."

Elijah gazed down at her again, at the face that had last been worn by Katerina Petrova. But though the features were the same, what lurked beneath felt different. This girl was clearly petrified. With Katerina, even when she was terrified of him – and she had been terrified – there had been a cold calculation just under the surface, a constant cold weighing of the pros here and the cons there. He smiled, and his voice was softly nostalgic. "Hello there."

He'd uttered those same words to Katerina, when he'd caught up to her the first time she had run.

The small tavern in the north of England was a-bustle with the recent influx of soldiers. Unrest amongst the region's peasants and noblemen alike had brought a number of the King's troops to the vicinity. They were garrisoned nearby, ostensibly to keep the peace. But after weeks on end with no actual fighting, the men were getting restless; soldiers not stimulated on the battlefield were bound to seek entertainment in the barrooms and brothels instead, and they had flocked to this place to stave off the boredom.

The smell of so many unwashed bodies in such close proximity to one another, combined with the scents of roasting meats and the pervasive acridity of smoke from the fireplace, made it well nigh impossible to ferret out any one single scent from the cacophony of odors. Fortunately, Elijah had tracked his quarry here two days ago and had merely been waiting for the rest of the party to catch up to him. Katerina Petrova had led a merry chase since she'd fled Klaus's estate under cover of the midday sun. She'd timed it perfectly, he'd give her that. Only a very few of Klaus's inner circle had been gifted with rings that allowed them to walk in daylight; even had the guards suspected that Katerina was hidden beneath the goods in the vendor's cart, most would have been unequipped to remove her from the wagon where it sat in the sun-drenched courtyard.

As it was, her disappearance had gone unremarked until the next morning, giving the woman almost a full day's head start. Rather than wait for nightfall, Elijah had set out at Klaus's behest in advance of the search party to return his errant concubine/sacrificial lamb to him. Once he'd tracked her to this tavern, he'd hidden in wait. Now that the rest of the men had arrived, he was ready to go in and retrieve her.

After positioning his men at the exits and windows, Elijah pushed his way through the crowd toward the kitchens, one sharp glance enough to discourage any who might have barred his way. He ignored the clucking of the innkeeper's wife where she stood at the big oven and pushed the door to the back room open.

She was in there. He could smell her just fine now. Nowhere to be seen, but he had no doubt that she was hidden behind one of the sacks of grain or barrels of mead stacked around the room. Fear carried with it its own scent, and he inhaled deeply of its pungent sweetness. Ah. There, in a little nook behind that crate of potatoes. Quiet as the grave, he crossed the room and, reaching into the crevice, grabbed a handful of her hair.

Katerina yelped as he pulled her from her hiding spot to stand before him. The days of flight and her service in the scullery had not been kind to her. The serving wench's clothes she wore were dirty and ill-fitting; Elijah had grown accustomed to seeing her in the gowns and jewels Klaus lavished upon her, and though she was still beautiful, its effects were somewhat diminished by her present circumstances. Her eyes, smudged dark underneath, widened in fear when she saw who held her.

"Hello there," he purred, as though they met as dancers on the ballroom floor and not as captor and captive in a dingy storeroom.

"Please, I beg of you, do not take me back to him!" Dark eyes beseeched him, tears welling and threatening to spill over. "Let me go, please. Have mercy!"

"And tell Klaus that I was unsuccessful in locating you? I think not. Come." He pushed her in front of him, toward the door.

Katerina dug her heels into the dirt floor and threw her weight back against him. "No! Please! I'll offer anything you want, just don't take me back to Klaus."

Amused, Elijah slowed his progress toward the door, considering. "And just what, pray tell, do you think you can offer? You have nothing with which to bargain."

She turned and faced him, and through her tears he saw the quick calculation behind those dark eyes. "I know where Klaus keeps the moonstone. I can tell you where it is."

"Why would I need the moonstone? It is Klaus who will undo the curse, to all of our benefit. I needn't know its whereabouts. And without a doppelganger, it would be rather useless, after all." Elijah took a firm hold on her arm and turned her once more toward the door.

Once more she dug her heels in. "If you knew, you could take it. You could prevent him from breaking the curse."

He halted his progess again. "And why would I wish to do that?"

Katerina twisted back around. "What need have you to break it? You already walk in the sunlight, as so few of your kind can." She tilted her head and met his eyes with a sidelong gaze. "It gives you power over the others. Makes you almost a god amongst them. Why should you wish to surrender such an advantage? If you allow Klaus to break the curse, imagine the adulation he'll garner. The chasm between his power base and that of the other Originals will widen so that it may never be breached."

Elijah allowed no reaction to show, but damn if she didn't strike straight to the heart of a weakness. "You make it sound as though we don't all share the same purpose."

"I've watched you, Elijah. You serve Klaus, but you are not subservient to him." Gaining confidence as she spoke, she lay her hands on his forearms, leaned into him conspiratorially. "It chafes, doesn't it? Watching them all jump to do his bidding?"

"He is the first among us, and the most powerful. There is a reason so many owe their allegiance to him."

"Because they are offered no viable alternative. You could be that alternative. They could serve you." Her face took on the coquettishness she'd employed to such good effect at Klaus's court. She trailed her fingers up his arms, across his shoulders, down his chest. "Taking me from Klaus would be a great coup for you, Elijah." Katerina draped herself against him, face tilted up invitingly, her meaning perfectly clear. "So take me."

Elijah regarded her for the space of a few heartbeats, then laughed deeply, genuinely amused. He'd been wondering when she'd get around to the predictable. "Katerina, you overplay your hand. Klaus's position is well secured, and your whore's charms move me not at all." He gripped her arm and, turning her roughly, propelled her inexorably toward the door. "It has been centuries since I could be led about by my cock."

There would have been no further incident, save for one fatal error on his part: When they stopped to shelter just before dawn, Elijah made the mistake of leaving Katerina in the care of a man who could be so led.

Elijah looked away from the girl and eyed that man, standing now before him. "We have a long journey ahead of us," he told her. "We should be going."

The girl struggled against the grip he had on her arm. She called over his shoulder, to Rose, "Please, don't let him take me!"

"One last piece of business. Then we're done." Elijah loosed his hold on the girl's arm and turned toward Trevor.

Trevor stood rigid, eyes downcast. "I've waited so long for this day, Elijah. I'm truly very sorry."

"Oh no, your apology's not necessary," he demured, stalking in a slow circle around the younger vampire.

"Yes. Yes it is. You trusted me with Katerina, and I failed you."

"Well yes, you are the guilty one." Elijah came full circle and stood facing Trevor. "Rose aided you because she was loyal to you. That I honor." Dropping the pretense of civility, he lowered his voice and gave Trevor a hard stare. "Where was your loyalty?"

"I beg your forgiveness," Trevor entreated him, eyes still glued to the floor.

Elijah nodded almost imperceptibly. "So granted." He let a brief moment pass, let a brief flare of hope light the younger man's eyes. On the next beat, he drew back his hand and slapped Trevor's head off, sending a geyser of blood shooting into the air.

Rose screamed as the body crumpled to the floor, the head rolling a few feet away from it. "You! – " she began.

"Don't, Rose, now that you're free," he advised. Leaving her sobbing on the stairs, he wiped Trevor's blood on his pant leg and extended it to the girl. "Come."

She backed away from him, eyes a little wild. "What about the moonstone?" she gulped out.

"What do you know about the moonstone?"

"I know that you need it, and I know where it is."

"Yes?" he prompted.

"I can help you get it," she offered.

Elijah raised an eyebrow at the girl, wondering if she truly knew anything or if this was all some tactic to stall for time. "Tell me where it is."

The girl shook her head. "It doesn't work that way."

He blinked a couple of times in disbelief. The sense of _deja vue_ was overwhelming. Was this... this slip of a girl really trying to bargain with him? Perhaps his first impression of her had been in error. He'd thought her weaker than Katerina, but perhaps some of that Petrova fire burned in her after all. "Are you negotiating with me?" he asked, shooting an incredulous look over at Rose.

"It's the first I've heard of it," Rose answered.

He turned back to the girl and caught her eyes. Or tried to; he could feel her resisting him. His gaze drew down to her necklace. It was of the right size and shape, and a surreptitious sniff confirmed it. "What is this vervain doing around your neck?" he asked, the question rhetorical. Grabbing the pendant, he snapped the chain and tossed it away from her. He wrapped his fingers in her hair, as he'd done to Katerina all those years ago, and this time he captured her eyes with his. "Tell me where the moonstone is."

She submitted readily. "In the tomb underneath the church."

"What is it doing there?" he asked.

"It's with Katherine."

"Interesting," was all he said aloud, but inside his mind was reeling. My god! Not only a living, human doppelganger, but Katerina AND the moonstone as well. And to think, he hadn't even wanted to make the trip. His mind started considering the myriad possibilities this sudden embarrassment of riches opened up to him, only to be brought back to the present by the breaking of glass.

"What is that?" he asked, releasing the girl's gaze as he looked around.

"I don't know," Rose said, fearful.

"Who else is in this house?"

"I don't know!"

Grabbing the girl by the arm, he ordered her, "Move!" and headed to the stairs as a blurry form zipped past him. He shoved the girl toward Rose when a second form shot by. "Rose?"

Rose's voice showed the first ragged edges of panic. "I don't know who it is."

A voice drifted down from upstairs. "Up here."

Elijah flew up the stairs, only to hear a second voice call, "Down here." He turned toward it. Instinct alerted him to the whizzing sound of a projectile and he turned so that the stake, when it came, went through his left hand.

He pulled it out and tossed it down over the banister. "Excuse me. To whom it may concern," he called out, "you're making a grave mistake if you think that you can beat me. You can't. Do you hear that?" Seizing a nearby coat rack, he broke it off of its base. "I repeat, you cannot beat me." Snapping the hooks off of the rack, he continued, "I want the girl, on the count of three, or heads will roll." Had he not just amply demonstrated his ability to make that happen? Elijah broke the post again for a sharper point. "Do we understand each other?"

The girl, who had disappeared from site while he was trying to trace his quarry, appeared on the landing, arms crossed in front of her in a defensive posture. "I'll come with you. Just... please don't hurt my friends. They just wanted to help me out."

Elijah started up the stairs again, stopping halfway to consider the girl before him. Acquaintance with her forebear had taught him nothing if not caution. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "What game are you playing with me?"

He saw her pull something out of one hand, and she loosed a projectile of some sort that shattered before it could impact him. Shards of glass and a spray of vervain hit his face full-on. He yelled as it seared his eyes and flesh, but the pain was fleeting as the wounds healed almost as soon as they appeared. Gritting his teeth, he advanced on her.

A shotgun sounded above him and a wooden bullet pierced his chest, the first in a hail of them. Grimly, he continued to advance even as the young man shot seven more bullets into him. With the gun empty, he launched himself at Elijah, sending them both hurtling down the stairs. Elijah was upright again almost immediately. Curling his fingers into a claw, he advanced with every intention of ripping the kid's heart from his body. In so doing, he left himself open.

His makeshift stake, discarded when the vervain hit him, pierced his heart as a second vampire went in for the kill. He stared, lust for the kill plain on his face, as he drove Elijah back against the door and pinned him there.

As his vision faded, he made it a point to memorize the face of the vampire who had killed him.


	2. Chapter 2

Elijah followed the bellboy to the executive suite and slipped him a hundred dollar bill from the clip in his pocket. The young man accepted it with a perfunctory nod and closed the door quietly behind him. If he wondered at the state of Elijah's clothing – dust-ridden, bloody and torn – he gave no indication beyond a slight raising of his eyebrows. The money precluded any further probing, just as his platinum credit card had garnered the same service and discretion at the Jefferson Hotel's concierge station. Money might talk, but it also assured that those receiving it wouldn't.

Confident that the clothing he'd sent a concierge to purchase for him would be waiting in the room when he finished, Elijah peeled off the ruined suit and stepped into the marble-lined shower in the elegant bathroom. He turned on water to the multiple jets and set the temperature to just shy of scalding. Bracing his hands against the slick marble, he leaned into the cascade and stood immobile for several minutes, letting the hot water wash down over him.

The dried, crusted blood sluiced off of his body and ran red once more as it pooled and circled the drain; the flesh underneath was smooth and unmarred from the stake that had impaled him. That wound had closed and heeled as soon as he'd pulled the wood from his chest. The only marks he carried were veteran scars, long healed, from ancient battles he'd fought before he turned. The scars he'd earned since then – some minor, some grievous – were invisible, and of no one else's concern.

He had misplayed things today. Too confident in his strength and in his reputation, he had let the young vampire – little more than a newborn, really – slip under his guard. It was very seldom that anything surprised him, but today had been one surprise upon another. Katerina: secured and in a known location. Moonstone: the same. And a true Petrova doppelganger, one that was still alive and human and ergo viable.

Alive, human, and already acquainted with vampires and the supernatural. He'd been hasty in thinking he could take and squirrel her away somewhere until he figured out how best to use her to his advantage. Another error on the day. Best now to put a plan together before approaching her again. If he handled it just right, perhaps he could gain her cooperation, reason with her. God knew there'd been no reasoning with Katerina.

Elijah turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. After drying off, he slipped into the hotel-provided robe and padded back out into the room. Sure enough, the purchases he'd requested were hung in the closet, the receipt for same tucked discreetly under the clip holding the garment bag closed. He tucked that into an outer pocket in his briefcase and pulled out his laptop. While it booted up, he called for room service (thank God for a 24-hour menu) and fetched his phone out of his discarded jacket. Fetching a bourbon from the well-stocked in-room bar, he noted the late hour, but opted to make his call anyway.

The phone rang six or seven times before the bleary voice answered on the other end. "'Uhn-lo?"

"Jonas."

"Elijah?" The voice sounded suddenly more alert. He could picture the warlock scrubbing his hands vigorously over his face in an attempt to fully wake.

"A... singular opportunity has presented itself. We need to reconnoiter, decide how best to make use of it."

"What opportunity?"

"Not over the phone." Tapping a few more keys on the computer, Elijah completed the transaction and hit 'send.' "I've purchased a ticket to Richmond, Virginia, for you. You'll find the confirmation and details in your email. You arrive tomorrow... actually, I guess that would be today, at 4:10 p.m. A car will be waiting to bring you to the Jefferson. We'll talk here."

"What about Luka?" Jonas now sounded completely awake, and cautious.

"Leave him home for now. You may wish to prepare him, though; I think the two of you will be relocating, at least temporarily, in the very near future."

"Whatever you've found, it's that big?"

"Bigger. I'll see you this afternoon." Elijah ended the call, pulled up his contact list, and sent out another call.

"Guhr?"

"Philip. I need you to do something for me. Slater?" Elijah closed the laptop and rose to look out the window.

"Elijah?"

"Mmm. I need you to hack this Slater's Craigslist account and any other accounts he may be using to make connections to any of us, but especially to Klaus."

The other man coughed to clear his throat, more awake now. "What am I looking for?"

"I want to know whom he's contacted, who has contacted him, and whom those people have in turn contacted within the last week or so."

"That's... a really tall order, Elijah. Slater is pretty savvy with this stuff, and paranoid besides. He will have covered his tracks."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll prove up to the task," Elijah said. His voice was soft and silken, but the implied consequence of failure stirred a turbulence underneath that smooth surface.

"It's going to take some time – "

"I'll call you tomorrow." Elijah's thumb on the 'end' button cut the protestation off mid-sentence. Philip always worked better under pressure. He was confident he'd get results.

A brisk knock at the door came as Elijah plugged his phone in to charge. "Room service," a voice called from the hallway.

Elijah opened the door and motioned the server inside. The man was perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five, fresh-faced in a preppy sort of way. He set the covered trays out on the table and prepared the place-setting as Elijah waited. Last came the tumbler and the expensive bottle of single malt scotch he had ordered. "Will there be anything else, sir?" he asked, straightening.

"As a matter of fact, yes." In a blur of movement Elijah had him pinned, his back against the wall next to the bed. He caught the man's eyes with his and rolled his will over the weaker mind. "You will remain still and quiet," he compelled.

At the acquiescent nod, Elijah extended his fangs and bit into the man's jugular. Using his thumb on the neck, he kept enough pressure on the vein to manage the flow rate, so that the hot blood poured into his mouth only as fast as he could drink it. The man's body relaxed against his as he fed, and Elijah settled him more firmly against him with an arm around his waist, drinking long and deep.

He generally required very little blood anymore, but the day's events had left him hungrier than usual. Elijah held the man in his embrace, drinking in his life force, until he felt the body start to slump as consciousness threatened to flee. He disengaged and, putting his thumb over the wound to staunch the bloodflow, he used a fang to slice a gash in his own finger. As blood welled briefly, he swiped it over the bite mark in the man's neck and watched the wound close and disappear. He took his time licking the last of the blood clean, then took a step back.

The server swayed a little, but remained upright, his face pale but calm. Elijah put a companionable arm across his shoulders and walked him to the door. When he had assured himself that the man wouldn't faint, he turned him so they were once more face to face. Another catch of the eyes, and Elijah told him, "You came to this room and delivered the meal. We spoke of inconsequential things for a few moments, then I tipped you and you left. You will remember nothing else."

"Nothing else," the man repeated.

Elijah crossed to the desk and peeled another hundred from his money clip, then returned and tucked it into the man's pocket. "Goodnight, sweetheart," he murmured and, smirking, opened the door and gestured him out.

Dinner thus accomplished, Elijah opened the scotch and switched the wide screen TV onto CNN to catch up with the day's headlines before settling in to start his research.


	3. Chapter 3

The room service waiter – a trim, vaguely Asian, middle-aged man this time – laid the meal out next to the two laptops on the table with a well-practiced efficiency, and slid back out of the room as quietly and unobtrusively as he had entered. Jonas raised a questioning eyebrow at the single place setting. "You're not eating?"

"I'll... dine later. Please, go ahead."

Pouring himself a scotch, Elijah sat at his computer and busied himself with updates to his database to give the warlock a chance to eat. The several hours of research he'd done on Mystic Falls had provided a wealth of new information to collate. Names, photos, recent events and, in some cases, familial lineages had all been available online. How easy it all was. A few hours to discover what would have taken weeks, even months to glean only a few decades ago. He never failed to marvel at how readily information was available to anyone who cared to look. Ironic that, in this day and age when knowledge and learning were but a few clicks away, fewer and fewer people undertook intellectual pursuits.

Had he been free to choose his own path, all of those centuries ago, he would have dedicated his life to scholarship and learning. A monastic setting maybe, or perhaps he would have made his way south and east to Byzantium, where scholarship and invention thrived even as Europe was plunged into the Dark Ages. But his father, and circumstance, had dictated otherwise. In any case, he had all the time now to learn whatever he wished. All the time.

Having made quick work of his meal, Jonas left the tray by the door and poured a scotch for himself. "Okay. Let's hear it."

Elijah closed the document and slid the laptop over to focus on the warlock. "What would you say if I were to tell you that we could control not only _when_ Klaus will attempt to break the curse, but also lure him to a place of _our _choosing to do so?"

Jonas rocked back, running a hand down over his face and puffing out a breath as he took that in. "I... He's not... You... How?"

"By having something he wants and needs."

The warlock's brows drew together as he considered the possibilities. "You found the moonstone?"

"I know its whereabouts. It is apparently squirreled away in a tomb underneath the wreckage of a church in Mystic Falls." Elijah sipped his drink and waited for Jonas to make the connection.

"Katherine Pierce. That's where she was burned in 1864. She was the last to have it?"

"Apparently she still does. Katherine is also in the tomb. Trapped there by a witch's spell."

"So... you want to use Katherine and the moonstone to lure Klaus here." Jonas got up and stalked to the windows, fingers laced atop his head. "Won't he just take them and go? Having the moonstone in his hand is no guarantee of anything, not without a doppelganger. He'll still need his witches to figure out the spell-work." Pacing between the windows and door, Jonas shook his head. "It's too risky. He'll have the stone and still have them."

"Oh. Did I fail to mention that we also have a doppelganger?" Elijah sat back and crossed his legs with a self-satisfied smile.

Jonas stopped short and stared at him, making a few abortive attempts at speech before he managed, "A Petrova doppelganger? You're certain? I thought the Petrova line had ended."

"As did I. Evidently we were both in error." Pulling his laptop in front of him, he gestured toward the chair. "Please, sit."

As Jonas took his seat, Elijah pulled up the local news photos from a 'Miss Mystic Falls' pageant. He pointed to one of the photos and enlarged it. "This girl, here. Elena Gilbert." She looked very glamorous and grown-up in the photo, far different from the frightened and bloodied girl he'd seen the day before. More like Katerina.

"You're sure this isn't Katherine Pierce, playing at being human?"

"I saw her yesterday. She's human. I'm certain."

"Yesterday? Where is she now?" Jonas glanced around, though it was obvious that the girl wasn't there.

"Back at her home in Mystic Falls, I presume."

The warlock gaped at him. "You didn't secure her? She could be halfway to anywhere by now!"

"There were... complications."

Jonas resumed his pacing. "You should have taken her. If you really want to draw Klaus out, we need her in hand, and now she's forewarned that someone is coming after her. That wasn't smart."

When Jonas completed his circuit to the window and turned back toward the door, Elijah was mere inches from him. Jonas stopped short to keep from running into the vampire. "Are you questioning me?" he asked, his voice low and deceptively soft.

He was pleased to see the warlock stumble back a step, the muscles in his throat working.

"No, no. It's just... we couldn't possibly have a better opportunity." He lifted his hands in apology. "Sorry. I... just want my daughter back. That's all."

Elijah let it go at that. Returning to the table, he tapped some keys and brought up a photo of Mystic Falls High School. "Elena is a student at this school. In looking through some of the photos of events, I noted this girl, the one next to the float. Her name is Bonnie _Bennett_. Does that name bear any meaning to you?"

Jonas studied the photo, then pulled his laptop over and opened a spreadsheet. "There were a line of Bennett witches in the group that migrated south from Salem. It's possible she's a descendant."

"I'd like for you and Luka to relocate to Mystic Falls. He's the same age as these girls. He can fit in, get close to them, perhaps learn if Ms. Bennett possesses the Gift."

The warlock looked dubious, and a little torn. "I'm not sure I want Luka involved in this."

"The boy need not do anything other than make friends at his new school. Surely there's no harm in that?" Jonas's eyebrows spoke volumes regarding what he thought about that. "We need someone close to the girls, someone whose presence won't arouse suspicions."

"I take it she doesn't know who or what you are? Because if she has any idea I can't imagine she's just hanging at home and going to school."

"She has no reason to be worried. She thinks me dead."

"Um... why does she think you're dead?"

"Because when last she saw me, I was."

Jonas leaned back and folded his arms in front of him. "What exactly happened yesterday?"

"I was called to meet with a couple of vampires on another matter. They wished to trade the girl for their release from an old debt. I did have thoughts of leaving with her yesterday, but as I said, there were complications." Elijah pulled up another photo, this one from an old newspaper from the '50's. Turning the screen toward Jonas, he pointed out a grainy figure in the background of the shot. "Stefan Salvatore. One of two brothers turned by Katerina in 1864."

"I don't follow."

"These Salvatore brothers rode to the girl's rescue before I could leave with her yesterday. The other brother killed me." He shook his head at Jonas's raised eyebrow. "He got lucky. The point is, they have no reason to expect they'll see me again. We still have the element of surprise."

Jonas sat and mulled it over for a few minutes. Leaving him to his thoughts, Elijah crossed to the desk and called Philip. "Results?" he said simply, when Philip answered.

"Emailing the data now. You would not _believe_ the crap I had to bust through to get all this. There was this one firewall – "

"Thank you." Ending the call, he returned to the table and opened the message. The results were encouraging. Most of the connections stopped up the chain at him. There were only a couple of lose ends that needed tying. Closing the laptop, he looked at Jonas expectantly.

"Okay. We'll make the move," he assented.

"Good." Elijah smiled at him, pleased. As if there had been any doubt.


	4. Chapter 4

****

**Wow, this scene (the part with Klaus) has really been kicking my ass. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but fussing at it is just going to drive me nuts, so here it is, for better or worse. **

**Thank you to everyone who has left a review. I really appreciate the feedback. Keep 'em coming! :-)**

**

* * *

**

The loft was airy, spacious, and far better appointed than Elijah had expected it to be. Given what he had heard of this "Slater," he had rather expected a dingy room in a basement somewhere. But the modern industrial décor boasted hardwood floors and weathered brick along with the exposed beams and piping that were common to these converted buildings. Large windows lined one wall; the fact that the window treatments didn't fully cover their broad expanse was a good indication that they were tempered glass, as was the large print centered above what Jonas had dubbed "command central" when they had entered the apartment. The sun theme was echoed in the wallpaper on the six monitors that graced the large computer desk. Furnishings were minimalist but tasteful, and the books that filled the shelves to overflowing spoke of a broad intellectual curiosity.

Elijah was going to regret having to kill him.

"How are you settling in?" he asked Jonas, seating himself at the desk. He glanced at the information Philip had sent and typed in the code that would override the system's security.

"The apartment is mostly still a maze of boxes, but unpacking hasn't really been a priority." Jonas finished up one bookcase that he was sweeping for anything of mystical use and moved on to a second. "Luka started school this week. He met Bonnie Bennett. We both did, actually."

"And?" Elijah located Slater's database on the hard drive and started running Philip's program to break the encryption.

"She does have the Gift."

"Strong?"

"Moderately. The potential is there, but she's mostly untrained. Luka's been teaching her a few little tricks." Jonas pulled out a section of books, checked behind them for anything that may have been hidden there. "He likes her." The warlock didn't sound happy about it.

"Well that's good. It will certainly simplify matters." The dialog box stopped scrolling as it hit on the password. Seconds later it disappeared and the database opened on-screen. Elijah put a thumb drive into the USB port and started the download. When Jonas didn't answer, he rolled his eyes and swiveled the chair around to face him. "What?"

"Hmm?"

"I can hear your lips pursing in disapproval from here. What is it?"

Jonas put the books back on the shelf and turned. "He… _likes_ her." Crossing his arms, he leaned back against the shelf.

"He's an adolescent male. She's an adolescent female. They have a 'special secret' in common. It follows."

"I know that," the warlock bit out. Jonas shifted his weight to the other foot. "He's having some misgivings about deceiving her."

"But he'll do as he's told." It wasn't a question. His tone warned that it hadn't better become one.

"He knows what's at stake. He'll do what I've asked." Jonas glared at him. "It doesn't mean he has to like it." The warlock turned down the hall. "I'm going to check the bedroom."

Elijah turned back to the computer. The little download progress bar was taking a leisurely stroll across the monitor. He left it to its meandering and stood at the window, watching the hustle and bustle of daily life unfold below. Four college-aged girls exited a gift boutique, two of them talking on cell phones as they walked. A youth on a skateboard slalomed through the crowd, drawing an angry yell from the sidewalk busker as the speedster clipped his guitar case and scattered coins over the pavement. A man in a three-piece suit barked into his Bluetooth and switched his briefcase to the opposite hand as he walked into a small law office. And two repairmen struggled to balance a sheet of glass between them as they shuffled from their work van to the coffee shop's storefront, and the gaping hole left in it by his impromptu coin toss the day before. How much of the scene below would be gone, wiped out, if Klaus had his way?

_He knows what's at stake._ No, he really didn't. He had no idea. He couldn't.

* * *

Elijah sat at the table, dumbstruck. Klaus's tirade had evidently put him in need of a drink. He crossed the room to the bar, crystal singing against crystal as he poured brandy from a Waterford decanter. Elijah heard him down two snifters full before he returned to the table with a third.

"Well?" Klaus leaned back against the rich leather, crossing his legs in front of him. "Say something. Speak. God knows you've never been short on opinions."

_You've lost your damn mind_. That was his opinion. But it wouldn't do to say that aloud. Klaus's increasingly mercurial moods and bouts of violent temper had set the entire compound on edge, everyone tiptoeing around in an effort to remain unnoticed. It was getting to the point where Elijah was the only one to speak to Klaus – as he was the only one who was more or less guaranteed to survive the experience.

"What you're talking about... It's – "

"Well. Past. Time." Klaus punctuated each word with a finger-tap on the table. "We need to call everyone together. Strategize."

"Klaus – "

"We can't wait on this any longer, Elijah."

"This isn't – "

"We need to move before it goes too far!"

Elijah stood and leaned his hands on the table, facing him down over the shining mahogany. "Too far? What would you have us do? Turn back time?" He pushed himself back from the table to pace the room.

Klaus slapped his palm on the table, bouncing the snifter off of it to land with a muted crash on the floor. "Our kind cannot bear up under these things. We'll be discovered. Everyone with a camera and the ability to send photos all over the world in a heartbeat? Someone is going to _notice_."

"That ship sailed a long, long time ago."

"And we were too complacent. When the humans catch on – and they _will_ catch on – it won't just be one little village. There are too many now, with too many weapons." Klaus stood, grinding the bits of crystal into the carpet. "We're not talking about a few meager peasants with stakes and pitchforks and torches. Or a shaman, with a knife and a moonstone, and a girl to sacrifice," he said, pointedly. Elijah clenched his jaw, but didn't take the bait. "And what happens when machines replace people at airports and banks and wherever else? We can't compel machines, Elijah."

"Yes: There _are_ too many. And they're connected. Everything to everything else." Elijah shook his head, crossed to the bar, poured himself a drink. "Communication, learning, science, resources, supply chains... all global. What you are talking about would require a complete and utter devastation of infrastructure in every, single, developed nation. Simultaneously."

Klaus smiled and came over to him, putting his hands on Elijah's shoulders. "See? You're planning already."

"That isn't planning, Klaus. It's stating fact. It can't be done."

"Oh, I have faith in you, my trusted general. When have you ever let me down?" Klaus slid his hands upward, cupping Elijah's face in them. Leaning in, he whispered, "Well, except for that _one_ time."

_Here we go_. Elijah gave no answer; what was there to say?

"But then," Klaus continued, "I suppose it can't really be called a failure. To say it was a _failure_ would be to imply that you had actually tried to succeed." He brought his face to within an inch of Elijah's. "And you didn't do that, did you? I think we both know why."

"Don't." The word came out as little more than a growl.

Klaus released him with a shove, pushing him back against the bar. He hit hard enough to knock a few glasses astray, but the heavy piece of furniture held.

"Did you think I didn't know?" Klaus moved in again, his chest bumping Elijah's and forcing him to lean back across the bar to try and keep some small distance between them. "Did you truly expect me to believe that _you_, an Original, couldn't track one newly-made vampire?" He pulled away as quickly as he had moved in, strolling over to the leather sofa and trailing his hands along the back of it. His voice took on a sudden, conspiratorial joviality. "Oh, and your extracurricular activities afterward? Not that I disapprove, per se. Except for the part where they made it exceedingly improbable that I'm to find another doppelganger. I'd say you owe me for that."

Klaus sat down on one end of the sofa, motioning Elijah toward the other. "Now: come, sit. Let's discuss what we're going to do. Since I know that you don't want to disappoint me again."

Elijah had left the compound – and Klaus – that night.

* * *

A low beep from the computer pulled Elijah's attention away from the window. Download complete, he pocketed the thumb drive and pulled a second from his breast pocket. Inserting it into the USB port, he pulled up the single file on it and pressed 'Run' to upload the mal-ware that would erase the hard drive. It was possible that there was a back-up somewhere, but there was nothing to be done about that.

He heard the downstairs door open, and swiveled the chair so he was facing the apartment door. Stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing his ankles, he laced his fingers together behind his head, the picture of perfect ease when Slater entered.

"What the _hell_ – " The vampire sped over to the desk and would have raised a hand to strike, had he not found himself suddenly and without warning against the brick wall on the opposite side of the room, pinned there with his feet dangling, held up by an iron grip around his throat.

"Slater, I presume," Elijah said, his tone conversational. "I think we should chat."

He felt Slater's throat working under his hand, and released him. Slater bent at the waist and coughed, straightening cautiously once he could draw breath again to speak. "Who are you?" he croaked out.

"I'm Elijah." He smiled at the look of panic his introduction engendered.

"Oh my God! Elijah! The Original Elijah! I... I thought you were dead. Well of course you're dead. 'Cause you're a vampire. I mean I thought you were dead-dead. That's what Rose said. Oh God, I'm rhyming." A sudden thought caused him to look even more alarmed, and he raised his hands in front of him. "Hey, not that I had anything to do with the dead-making! I had no idea about any of that, or any Salvatores or moonstones or werewolves or the other stuff... that I'm probably not supposed to mention. Anyway, I'm not the dead-making guy, I'm just the guy with the lists and the contacts and the search engine and oh God please say something so I'll stop talking!"

"You went to some trouble to contact me."

"Oh, it was no trouble!" Elijah cocked an eyebrow at him. "Ah, I don't mean it was easy. Just that it wasn't... I didn't mind..."

Elijah almost grinned at him, tripping all over his tongue as he was. Almost. "Other than the people you contacted via the Internet, who knows you were trying to reach me?"

"Just Cody. Cody Webber. I spoke with him on the phone."

"And what does he know?"

"Just that Rose was trying to get in touch with you. That's all."

"Excellent." Elijah did smile at him then. "It wouldn't do to be seen talking out of turn."

Slater offered a tentative smile back, looking slightly relieved. "Hey, that's cool. Wow, I can't believe you're here. An Original, in Richmond, in my apartment... Hey, wait a minute. The coffee shop..." he glanced over toward the window. "Was that you?"

"Mmm." He gave a low, non-committal hum.

"'Cause I gotta say, neat trick. I mean the whole sun scorching my flesh thing kinda sucked, but major points for style, dude."

"I'm glad you appreciated it." Oh, he really _was_ sorry he was going to have to kill this one. He would have been useful and amusing to keep around. But the risk he posed was too great. "Do you have a cell phone, Slater?"

"Uh, yeah. Right here. Why?" He slid the phone out of his jeans pocket.

"Good." Elijah caught his gaze and rolled the other vampire's mind. "I need you to make a phone call..."


	5. Chapter 5

**This section expands on two scenes: the scene between Elijah and Jonas after Elijah saves Elena from the three vampires at Slater's loft; and the scene between Jenna and Elijah before Elena discovers that Elijah is in the house.**

**I really appreciate your comments and reviews. Keep 'em coming. :-)**

**

* * *

**Jonas didn't appear to be at home when Elijah let himself into the Martins' apartment. The deep, steady breathing coming from behind Luka's closed door told him that the boy was sound asleep. Odd, given the early hour. He stepped into the kitchenette and washed his hands, giving them the thorough scrubbing he hadn't truly been able to avail himself of in what the gas station attendant had delusionally referred to as a rest room. Back in the living room, he noted the knife and the pilfered items Jonas had used earlier for the shadow spell still sitting on the small dining table. He stationed himself at the window and offered up a silent thanks to whichever Fate had urged them to try that spell when they had.

He hadn't thought to return to Slater's loft once the younger vampire was dead and his information extracted, but when he'd seen the girl there he knew that there was no time to waste. If she'd located Slater, that meant that she was working up the same chain of communication that had led to him, and he couldn't have that. Everything hinged on keeping the doppelganger's existence a secret from Klaus. The more she poked at that series of contacts, the more likely it was that she'd eventually encounter someone who was in touch with Klaus. Or that they'd encounter her.

And just what in the nine hells was the girl doing, anyway? _Trying_ to get herself killed? She'd certainly seemed hell-bent on remaining free of Klaus when he had tried to take her from the mansion. And wherever she went it seemed a Salvatore stood nearby, waiting to save her. Why poke the nest, just to see if any more hornets flew out of it?

Footsteps drifted up the inner staircase, and Jonas entered the apartment. He didn't seem particularly surprised to have company. "Where's Luka?" Elijah asked, knowing where but hoping to learn why the boy would be abed so early.

"Asleep." He didn't elaborate.

Elijah shrugged slightly. "Your shadow spell was successful. I was able to track that girl. However I did have a little run-in with one of the brothers that killed me."

"I assume he didn't live to tell about it," Jonas ventured.

"Actually, I spared him." Elijah shook his head. "He'd die for her. They both would. She'll be kept safe."

"For now." The warlock sounded dubious.

"That's precisely what we need her to be." Elijah turned away from the window to face him. "Safe."

Jonas hung his keys on a hook near the door and went to the refrigerator, pulling out a beer and some leftover Chinese food. He held the beer up questioningly.

Elijah declined with a shake of his head and perched against the counter opposite while Jonas dumped the congealed mass of... whatever it was onto a plate and stuck it into the microwave to heat. "It's a little early for Luka to be asleep, isn't it? Is he unwell?" he asked.

Jonas tossed the empty container in the trash can. "He had a rough day. Bonnie Bennett pulled him into a spell earlier. Gave him a nosebleed and a hell of a headache."

"I thought you said she was untrained." Elijah leaned back and crossed his arms in front of him.

"Mostly. Apparently Luka took it upon himself to give her a lesson in channeling. And then, because _that_ wasn't stupid enough, he left his dogtags with her after showing her how to use them to draw energy away from him."

"Well, on a positive note, that should take care of his little crush on her."

Jonas snorted. "You'd think, but no. He's pissed at _me_."

Elijah quirked a brow at the warlock. "Because...?"

"Because he's a teenager?" Jonas opened the silverware drawer and took out a fork. It took a couple of tries to slide it back in without catching. "Complex rituals, archaic curses, astral projection? Piece of cake. But adolescence? _That's_ a mystery for the ages."

Elijah looked from the drawer to the faded wallpaper, from the wall to the corner of the floor, where the linoleum had started to peel. "Isn't this place a little... lowbrow, for a doctor?"

"It's what was available on short notice, and it didn't require a lease." Jonas removed the plate from the microwave after it dinged and went over to the table, pushing aside the photo of Elena Gilbert, still smeared with Elijah's blood. He gestured toward it with his fork. "So where was she? You took off out of here pretty fast."

Elijah pulled a chair out across from the warlock and sat. "Slater's loft."

Jonas glanced up from his makeshift meal, eyebrows raised. "What was she doing there?"

"I wish I knew." He scraped idly at the dried blood on the glass with his thumbnail. "There were three other vampires there when I arrived. Cody was one of them. He said he was there to collect the doppelganger and bring her to me, for Klaus."

"I guess he hadn't heard that the two of you broke up?"

"No. Klaus speaks to so few directly now. I imagine it isn't exactly common knowledge."

"So how did Cody know the girl was there?"

_I probably should have inquired about that before I killed him_. "I don't know." Elijah leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. He hated this feeling of being two steps behind, unaccustomed as he was to it. It seemed that was how he'd been operating since leaving Manhattan and driving south. He needed to do something to get back on an even keel.

"Does anyone else know about her?" Jonas pushed the empty plate away and took a couple swallows of beer.

"According to him, no."

Jonas studied him across the table. "What are you going to do?"

Elijah lifted the photo, studying it. "I think it's time Miss Gilbert and I had a talk."

* * *

Elijah glanced down at the address Carol Lockwood had given him and compared it to the numbers on the white house. The home was modest, but well-kept, with a swing gracing the front porch and a few flower pots here and there adding color and character. Making his way up the steps, he rang the doorbell and waited.

Footsteps pounded down a set of stairs, and a woman, looking barely older than Elena herself, opened the door, still trying to get her right foot all the way into the shoe she had obviously slipped on in a hurry. "Miss Sommers?" Elijah said, extending his hand to her.

"Oh please, it's just Jenna. You must be Mr. Smith." She shook his hand, a little awkwardly.

"Elijah is fine."

"Please, come in," she invited, backing up a step to let him through the door.

Elijah smiled and crossed the threshold. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Miss – Jenna. I hope Mrs. Lockwood didn't strong-arm you too badly."

"No, it's fine! I was just making some coffee. Would you like some?"

"That would be lovely. Thank you." Elijah followed her to the living room. While she went to the kitchen to fetch the coffee, he examined the photos on the mantle. Family photos, all of them; Elena and a younger brother at various ages, sometimes together and sometimes solo, others showing a family of four. One shot, obviously taken during some long ago holiday, showed the younger Gilbert children with Jenna, who looked to have been around Elena's age now when it was taken.

"'The Gallery,'" Jenna said, nodding toward the photos as she came back in, a tray balanced precariously in one hand and a box held to her hip with the other. Elijah took the tray from her and set it on the coffee table. "Thanks. My sister was nuts about taking pictures. I'd be amazed if there are more than five undocumented minutes of Elena and Jeremy when they were little."

"Mrs. Lockwood mentioned that you're raising your niece and nephew now. That must be quite an undertaking."

She gave a quick laugh. "That… would be putting it mildly." Sitting on the sofa, she poured coffee from a carafe into the two mugs. "How do you take yours?"

"Black is fine." He took the proffered cup and seated himself in the overstuffed chair. "I imagine it must have been a difficult adjustment, for all involved."

"Uh, yeah." Jenna stirred a generous amount of cream into her own coffee and added a spoonful of sugar. Scooting back into the cushions, she folded her legs up underneath her and cradled the warm mug between her hands. "I still have days when I wake up and can't believe that this is my life now."

He took a sip of the coffee. "What were you doing before?"

"Going to school. Partying. Drinking too much, smoking things I shouldn't have been. The usual," she said ruefully. "And _now_ here I am, telling my sister's kids _not_ to do those same things, and feeling like the world's biggest hypocrite." She tucked her hair behind her ear and settled a throw cushion idly on her lap, looking for all the world like a teenager herself. "I mean, the idea of _me_ being totally responsible for two other human beings? Is totally ridiculous."

_She's cute_, he thought, apropos of nothing. Elijah leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. "I'm sure you're doing the best you possibly can under the circumstances. They're at a difficult age. Teenagers: a mystery for the ages," he said, echoing Jonas's words.

"Definitely. You'd think being a grad student in psychology would help, but it actually just makes me realize how much I _don't_ know…" She shrugged. "Do you have kids?"

He shook his head. "No. I… lived with someone once, someone who was orphaned and left to care for her younger siblings. It's not an easy situation; I think you're to be commended for what you're doing."

She blushed and tucked her hair back again, obviously a nervous habit. "Family. What're you gonna do?" Leaning forward, she pulled the box over to her and started removing what looked to be old journals or photo albums. "But I'm sure you didn't come over here to listen to me whine about being the 'loco' in _in loco parentis_. Carol said you're writing a book on small towns in Virginia?"

Elijah smiled at her and nodded. "Yes. I'm particularly interested in the 18th century settlements in this area. So much has been written about the 19th century, but there were people here well before that."

Jenna flipped through a couple of the albums. "I think these photos and articles here are mostly 1880 and after. I know Miranda had boxes and boxes of stuff from the Historical Society's archives, though. Let me see what I can dig up."

Elijah made a show of flipping through the albums he was ostensibly there to examine while Jenna rose and started combing through the hall closet. "I'm not sure you're going to find much pre-1800. Mystic Falls was founded around then," she called. "The Lockwoods arrived in 1811 I think, the Fells at around the same time, the Gilberts a couple years later, and – eek!"

Hearing the sound of something heavy starting to slide, Elijah sped to the hall and was there to reach over her head and catch the large box of ledgers. She turned and squeaked again to find him standing mere inches behind her, and blushed once more as she pushed at her hair. "Why don't I set this on the table?" he said, smiling down at her.

"Um, yeah. Good catch," she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. _Cute, and easily flustered. How unfortunate that this was no time to get distracted._

He saw her bend to pull some more boxes from the floor as he turned toward the dining room. The box he carried looked to contain ledgers of births and deaths, something that may prove useful down the road. As he flipped through the worn, leather-bound books, he heard the front door open, and Elena's voice as she spoke to her aunt. His smile turned predatory, in anticipation of her shock at finding him there. Inside of her house.

"Hey, what are you doing?" she asked.

"Oh, good timing," Jenna answered. He heard the sound of a box being transferred from one to the other.

"Whoa! What is this stuff?"

"Your mother's files from the historical society. I got roped into helping Mrs. Lockwood. Aaaand, by roped, I mean very excited to participate." Jenna stood and closed the closet door, revealing Elijah standing behind it.

"Hi," he said, smiling as the girl jumped and stared at him in horror. "I'm Elijah."


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note: I'm using my one-off, "Don't Look" as the emotional backdrop/landscape for Elijah, so if you're missing a reference it may be to that.**

**As always, reviews would be much appreciated. :-)**

**

* * *

**

Assured that the warlocks would have the containment spell broken before evening's end, Elijah ended the call with Jonas and pulled up another number on his speed dial as he walked from the Gilbert house to his Lexus, parked a little way down the street. His conversation with the doppelganger had given him a lot to think about, but that would have to wait until he had attended to more pressing details.

The woman answered on the third ring. He could hear snippets of various conversations in the background, along with music and the intermittent crack of one billiard ball striking another. "Where are you?" he asked, without introduction or preamble. He assumed none was necessary.

"I'm in town. Some restaurant."

"Did you speak with the mayor?"

"Yeah. And the sheriff. They're opening up an investigation."

Elijah checked the coordinates on his GPS and pulled away from the curb. "And the boy?"

"Met him briefly, but we didn't have a chance to talk. The conversation may be a little more meaningful after tonight, anyway."

"The information I provided was useful, then?"

"Yeah." Elijah could hear irritation and the beginnings of impatience in the woman's voice. Werewolves – so touchy during the full moon. "Which I guess begs the question: What do you want, Elijah?"

"There are a number of elements that, though innocuous in and of themselves, are highly potent when gathered in combination. Vampires, werewolves, witches... a certain little white rock..." he drawled. "I think you know what I'm getting at. I have interest in the Lockwood boy."

"He's one of us. What makes you think I'm going to just hand him over to you?"

"The weather has been particularly nice in Ocala as of late," he said, conversationally. "Your mother has been working on the front flowerbeds. She finally pulled out that overgrown rhododendron and planted some peonies." At the prompting of the GPS he turned left, heading out of the village area proper and toward the more wooded areas of the old church property. "Oh, and your niece... Jasmine, is it? She won the district spelling bee. There's a regional competition just next week..."

"Okay, fine! I get it," she growled into the phone. "What do you _want_?"

"Merely to insure that I have a werewolf when and where I need one." Elijah turned onto a gravel road, overgrown to barely a car's width. "I'm assuming you'd rather it not be _you_, Jules?"

He heard the woman sigh sharply, and wondered just what ill-advised retort she'd bitten off. "I'll be in touch," she said tersely.

The call ended abruptly. Elijah smiled as he killed the engine, turned off the headlights, and waited for Jonas's text to tell him the deed was accomplished.

* * *

Elena had been something of a surprise to him. She'd been frightened, to be sure, and no doubt horrified that he'd managed an invitation into the house, but she hadn't panicked and raised the alarm, not once he had shushed her with a gesture.

Her room had offered a fascinating glimpse into her mind. It was well-ordered, and suited to a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Relics of a childhood so recently passed kept company with articles of adulthood, like the small stuffed animal standing guard over make-up and beauty products where they lay carelessly on her vanity. As had been the case downstairs, there were family photos and photos of friends on the shelves and the bureau. A soft blanket and a book left open on the window seat whispered of a penchant for curling up there in the sun to read, or perhaps to write in the journal that he had noticed peeking out from the under the cushion when he'd shifted those items to seat himself. What he'd give to read it and gain further insight into the young woman.

Elijah had been prepared for pleas of mercy, for desperate but impossible vows of aid if spared, but Elena hadn't offered those things. Instead, she had been surprisingly astute – tripping right away to the fact that he didn't know Klaus's current whereabouts, weighing his actions to date against the words he offered, smartly questioning how he might accomplish the things he promised. She was a clever girl.

Clever, and brave. She had recognized that he did not guarantee her safety as he did that of those she loved. He was sure he'd seen that understanding flash through her eyes. It hadn't stopped her from accepting his deal, though, not once she was assured of her friends' and family's safety, which to all appearances was of more paramount concern to her than her own. She had even negotiated for the younger Salvatore's release. Nothing about the meeting had been quite as he had expected.

It had been so very different with Katerina.

Mere weeks had passed since Klaus had returned from a visit to his southern holdings, but already his new mistress had caused untold upheaval in the household. Elijah had been careful to keep his distance, allowing the shock and the pain of her sudden appearance to dissipate somewhat before attempting direct contact with the woman.

Even from afar, though, it was not difficult to ascertain the effect her presence there was having. None but he and Klaus knew of Katerina's true destiny and purpose; to the rest she was simply the utterly spoiled and entitled mistress to the master of the house, a role she played with evident relish. Nor did she yet know the true nature of the company she kept. Elijah suspected she would not so much be horrified as intrigued by the contemplation of eternal youth and beauty, vain creature that she was.

Katerina flaunted the new gowns and sparkling gemstones Klaus showered upon her under the noses of the other women, using her sharp tongue to prod them to jealousy when her baubles were insufficient to the task. Klaus's lavish attentions were apparently not enough for her, though; she bedeviled the men with her flirtations, causing rift upon rift between men and their wives and betwixt close friends who strove to be first in her affections.

Frightened as they were of Klaus, no man dared press himself upon his mistress, and she used that fact to entice them almost beyond bearing. After Elijah had broken up his third fight that week between grown men – _vampires!_ – who should damn well have known better, he had had enough.

With Klaus away for a couple of days, Elijah expected that Katerina's games would ramp up to new levels of deviousness, and he was thus unsurprised when she returned to her chamber so late at night. He had been waiting there, in the dark, for hours when she finally made her appearance. He sat motionless, hearing the rustle of her clothing as she worked the laces loose from the velvet. Once he heard her step free of the dress and pad toward the bed, he struck flint and lit the candle waiting beside him on the table.

"Good evening, Katerina."

Katerina shrieked and whirled around, eyes wide. Though her shift covered everything of import, her arms still crossed protectively over her breasts. He continued to sit, and when he made no move toward her, she let them drop, quickly growing bold as she recovered from being startled.

"You're Elijah. Klaus's second-in-command."

"Yes."

"I've seen you, here and there about the estate." She tilted her head in what he supposed she thought was a fetching manner. "You've been watching me."

"I have."

"Yet you wait until now, when Klaus is away, to make formal introduction, and in such a... provocative manner." She stalked in a slow circle around the far side of the table, drawing to a halt behind his chair. Putting a hand on his shoulder, she leaned in toward him. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" she purred.

Elijah slid his hand up to take her wrist, drawing her around in front of him. "You're proving to be quite a distraction to my men."

"Am I?" she demurred.

"Mmm. But I think you know that." He stroked his thumb idly over the pulse on the inside of her wrist.

"Perhaps your men lack discipline; could it be that your training lacks the proper efficacy?" she suggested, stepping closer so that she stood with her knees touching his. Her free hand brushed hair back from his face.

"A general's firmest hand often proves unequal to the softest of caresses from a wanton woman."

"Am I wanton?" Katerina settled herself on his lap and slid her wrist from his fingers to intertwine her own with them, brushing her thumb across the base of his. "I bet your... _hand_ is very firm," she said. She brought their joined hands to her lips and, when he didn't resist, drew one finger into her mouth.

"What game do you think you're playing, Katerina?" he asked, his voice a low warning.

"Why?" she said, her tongue stroking over his fingertips. "Do you want to play with me?"

One moment she was draped across him, languid and suggestive. A split second later, she was flat on her back on the table, Elijah's hand tight around her throat, eyes gone wide with fright to find herself in that predicament with no real sense of how she'd gotten there.

He bent forward so his lips were close to her ear. "Listen very carefully, Katerina; I will not repeat myself: You will stop parading yourself in front of my men like a bitch in heat. You will cease causing trouble between the women, and between the women and their men. You will comport yourself with whatever modicum of class you can conjure… And you will never, _ever_, touch me again. Have I made myself clear?"

She nodded as best she could with his hand on her neck. He released her as suddenly as he had pinned her, and took a step back. Katerina pulled herself upright. Though tears gathered in her dark eyes, none yet fell. Elijah saw her throat and jaw work as she straightened her shift and let her temper rise. Her intent was plain well before her arm moved.

Elijah caught her wrist again as her hand came up to strike him. "_You bastard_!" she began, in Bulgarian. "Klaus will – "

"Klaus will allow me to do to you whatever I wish, so long as I leave you alive at its surcease." With his other hand he grabbed a handful of her hair and forced her to look up at him. Catching her gaze, he rolled his will over her, and with it unleashed a cavalcade of images as to just how much torture could be committed upon someone without it killing them.

Her eyes gone wide and blank with terror, Elijah didn't release her until her body sagged, held up only by his grip on her hair, and he smelled the sudden, sharp scent of urine. She fell back onto the floor once he no longer held her up, and scrambled backward until her back fetched up against the bed.

Elijah squatted down so that his eyes were level with hers. "Are we clear?" has asked again, softly.

The tears that hadn't escaped before ran freely down her cheeks. "Y-y-y-yes," she stuttered, her voice trembling along with her body.

"Good," he said, tone friendly, as though none of the preceding had taken place. Giving her a pat on the head, he rose and exited the chamber, leaving her crying and shaking on the floor.

* * *

Having heard the noise of the tomb's door being moved, the two vampires came around the corner. The younger Salvatore looked confused; Elijah had, after all, been dead the last time he had seen him, and apparently no one had disavowed him of that notion. Katerina gasped and backed up when she saw who visited. "Elijah!"

"Good evening, Katerina," he said, enjoying the sight of her – dirty, hungry, afraid. "Thank you for having the good sense to be frightened." He turned toward Stefan Salvatore. "Your release has been requested."

"By who?" Stefan asked, obviously still off guard.

By _whom_, Elijah mentally corrected. "The lovely Elena drives a hard bargain. However, we reached a peaceful agreement, she and I." He stepped back and motioned to Stefan. "Please, come."

"I can't."

"Yes you can," he explained, as though to a particularly dimwitted child. "I've had the spell lifted." _This_ was the one to whom Elena Gilbert showed preference? He would have guessed the elder brother. At least she didn't appear to partake of them both, unlike the woman standing before him.

Stefan crept cautiously toward the entrance, where the spell's embrace had so recently held them prisoner. When he didn't encounter that resistance, he pushed forward and cleared the threshold.

Elijah had been watching her and waiting for it, so he was ready when Katerina broke for the entrance at speed. Faster than her, he barred her way with his body, backing her up without needing to lay hands on her. "As for you, however..." Elijah caught her eyes with his and compelled her. "You should not exit until I say so. When Klaus comes he'll want to know _exactly_ where you are."

He released her gaze as quickly as he'd caught it and stepped back out into the antechamber. "You're free to go," he told Stefan. "Elena will explain the arrangement to you. If she keeps her word, I'll keep mine."

Elijah gave Katerina one last, hard stare, and left the tomb. As he walked away he could hear her pleading with the Salvatore brother not to leave her there, and smiled to himself when he heard Stefan tell her good-bye.

* * *

Luka was still up when Elijah arrived at the Martins'. Father and son sat at the table, about halfway through a rather greasy looking pepperoni pizza. A bag of potato chips and either a soda or beer (age depending) rounded out the meal. He refused Jonas's offer of food but accepted the beer this time, seating himself. "Hello, Luka," he said, taking a sip of the micro-brew.

"Hey."

Ah, yes, the monosyllabic response of adolescents. "How are you doing at your new school?"

The boy shrugged. "Okay." He glanced at Jonas, who gave him a small shrug. Elijah set the beer down and leaned forward slightly. "I know that this has probably been quite a disruption to your life. I want to thank you for your help with regard to securing the moonstone, even if the method of its procurement sits ill with you."

Luka shrugged and reached for another slice of pizza. "I want my sister back. So, whatever we have to do, we have to do."

Elijah watched the grease ooze and pool on the paper plate; Luka dumped more chips out of the bag to go with the slice. "You _are_ a physician, are you not?" he said to Jonas.

"I didn't exactly have time to prepare a soup, salad, and entree course, what with the running around breaking containment spells and all," he said pointedly.

Elijah took another swallow of beer and addressed Luka again. "I know you feel badly for deceiving someone you would like to call a friend, but the moonstone is critical. And really, when all is said and done, we all desire the same outcome."

"Yeah, that'll sell. Whatever." The boy rose and discarded his empty plate, polishing off his soda as he went to the kitchen. "I'm going to bed, Dad. 'Night."

The bedroom door closed, and moments later they heard some sort of rap or hip-hop music, Elijah could never keep straight which was which. He propped one foot up on Luka's abandoned chair. "I thought that went well."

Jonas chuckled. "Welcome to my world."

"So," Elijah said, finishing off the beer. "I spoke with Elena Gilbert today."

"I hope that conversation was more successful than this one." Jonas rose and went to the refrigerator, returning with two more beers.

"It was. We've reached an accord, she and I." Elijah accepted the second bottle and popped the top off. "She will live her life and stop seeking one of Klaus's men to end it, and I – meaning we – will protect her loved ones."

"But not her."

"About that…" Elijah scratched at the label on the bottle with his thumbnail. "Do you recall a discussion we had before we knew of the doppelganger's existence, regarding the possibility of using a witches' death ground to achieve the power necessary to overcome Klaus?"

"Yeah, I recall. But that was more a hypothetical or theoretical discussion. Why?"

"Between your research on bloodlines and a cursory glance at some of the more obscure records here in Mystic Falls, I think there may be such a site in or near this town." He discarded one strip of damp paper on the table in front of him and started on another section of the label. "If I'm reading between the lines correctly, I believe a substantial number of witches may have been burned there."

"Isn't Klaus supposed to be weakened after the sacrifice of the doppelganger?" Jonas pulled a piece of pepperoni from the remainder of the pizza. "We may not need to find the site."

"Or, perhaps, we can lure Klaus in with promise of a doppelganger, only to use the grounds to pull enough power to finish him." He freed the last of the label from the bottle. "In which case, the sacrifice would be unnecessary."

The warlock took some time to consider. "I don't like the idea of murdering a young girl. If we can pull this off without the sacrifice then great, I'm all for it. _But_." Jonas sat forward, his elbows on the table. "My daughter is my first priority. If we can't find the grounds, or if I don't think we can do this without the sacrifice, then I will bleed her myself if that's what it's going to take to bring Greta home."

"Understood. In the meantime, I think it might behoove us to provide a demonstration to Miss Gilbert of our intent and ability to protect her loved ones from harm." Elijah drained the bottle and set it beside the first. "Are you up for a little werewolf wrangling?"

"Wait, what?" Jonas paused with his beer halfway to his mouth.

"The Lockwood boy. He's reportedly triggered the family curse. In fact, he should be turning tonight as we speak."

"And he… needs to be wrangled?"

"Not him, no. But I passed along some information regarding him – and the disappearance of his uncle – to a particular werewolf bitch who has proven useful in the past. She's here to see the boy."

"I'm still not following."

"Werewolves are nothing if not predictable. And predictably stupid. She'll take the boy under her wing, then she'll figure out readily enough that it was the local vampires who disposed of the uncle. She'll whistle for the rest of the pack, they'll converge on Mystic Falls, and they'll try to take care of the vampire problem."

"They'll go after the Salvatores." Jonas nodded, catching on.

"And we will of course rush to their defense, as per my agreement with Miss Gilbert." Elijah propped his other foot on the chair and leaned back, arms behind his head, one eyebrow raised at Jonas.

The warlock lifted his beer in a gesture of salute, and drank. "Let's wrangle some werewolves."


	7. Chapter 7

**I dunno, you guys. This one was grueling. Not too thrilled with it, but I wanted to touch on events to date to get Elijah's take on them. Once I get through the next section and up to the daggering, THEN I can have fun without the constraints of what has already happened. Hang in there with me!**

**

* * *

**

_Snap the neck of that one with the right hand while ripping this one's heart out with the left. Whirl around 150 degrees. Tear the spine out. Toss this one against the wall to crush bone and speed over to block that group from escaping through the door. Throw the serving fork to spear the one crouching in the corner before she escapes out the back exit – _

"...in Richmond for your book? There's such a wealth of history."

Elijah left off amusing himself with possible ways to liven up this absurd tea party and focused his attention back on Carol Lockwood. "Oh, no, I'm focusing mostly on the smaller regions of Virginia, doing lots of research. It's strictly academic," he answered inanely.

"That's fascinating," she said, stepping into his personal space for the fourth or fifth time during the conversation. He wondered idly just how long she had been widowed; he was rather unaccustomed to being the prey in the equation.

Glancing toward the archway, he saw Damon Salvatore make an entrance, greeted with reserve by Jenna Sommers and with a bit more enthusiasm by a woman who looked vaguely familiar. Shaking her loose, he approached.

"Damon!" Carol stepped away from him and turned toward the other vampire.

"Carol," Damon greeted her back warmly, clasping her outstretched hands.

"What a surprise! Hi! Elijah, I want you to meet Damon Salvatore. His family is one of Mystic Falls' founding families."

"Mm-hm. It's such a pleasure to meet you." Damon said, and extended his hand, wearing much the same look as he had when he was ramming a pole through Elijah's heart and killing him.

Elijah held the eye contact and gripped Damon's hand back, perhaps a little harder than strictly necessary. "No, the pleasure's mine."

"Oh, there's Mrs. Atwood. I should introduce you!" Carol went to attach herself to some old woman in a ridiculous hat who had just entered the room.

Damon freed his hand and gestured toward a closed door across the room. "Why don't we slip into the study for a moment."

_This should be amusing._ Elijah nodded briefly and wove his way through the crowd of women. He preceded Damon into the room, waiting until the latter had closed the door and crossed the room before speaking. "What can I do for you, Damon?"

"I was hoping we could have a word."

"Where is Elena?"

"Safe, with Stefan. They're laying low. You know, we've had a bit of a werewolf problem."

Elijah ran his fingers over the back of the leather sofa. "Oh yeah, I heard about that," he said, playing along. Jonas had filled him in on the previous evening's festivities. Since he very much doubted that the mongrels had taken the advice to 'flea' town, both he and the warlock remained on alert.

"I'm sure you did, since it was your witch who saved the day," Damon sing-songed.

"You _are_ welcome."

Damon perched on the large desk. "Which adds to my confusion. Exactly why are you here?"

He was obnoxious, to be sure, but at least this one thought to ask the pertinent questions. "Why don't you just stay focused on keeping Elena safe, and leave the rest to me." He turned toward the door, only to find it suddenly blocked.

"Not good enough," Damon said, going toe-to-toe with Elijah.

Elijah gave him a hard stare for a moment. The next second, his left hand was wrapped around Damon Salvatore's throat and he had the younger vampire slammed up against the wall. Damon reached his right hand up to grip his neck in response. Elijah peeled it off, crushing the bones in Damon's wrist as though they were made of fragile glass. "You young vampires... so arrogant." He pushed the broken limb down to dangle at Damon's side. "How dare you come in here and challenge me?"

The Salvatore brother, though so clearly overpowered, still glared at him, defiant. "You can't kill me, man. It's not part of the deal," he gritted out.

Unfortunately, that much was true. "Silence," he told him softly. Reaching down with his right hand, Elijah grabbed a wooden pencil from the desk and stabbed it into Damon's larynx, pitching him forward over the desk.

The younger man clawed at it as Elijah whipped a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped blood from his hand. "I'm an Original," he said mildly. "Show a little respect." He held he bloodied cloth out to Damon, who snapped it out of his fingers and held it to his bleeding neck, wisely remaining silent. Or perhaps he just couldn't speak around the wood still embedded in his throat. "The moment you cease to be of use to me, you're dead," Elijah advised him, heading toward the door. "So," he smiled, "you should do as I say. Keep Elena safe."

Elijah exited the office, closing the door behind him to allow time for Damon to heal and to clean himself up enough to be once again seen in public. Jenna and the other woman he'd seen earlier waylaid him between there and the archway. "Elijah, this is Andie Starr," Jenna began. "She's a reporter for the local news station."

So that's why she looked familiar. "Miss Starr," Elijah said, taking the woman's outstretched hand.

"Mr. Smith. It's nice to meet you. I was hoping to do a feature on the book you're writing. Do you have a few moments to talk?" The reporter smiled at him hopefully.

"Oh, well, that's very flattering," he demurred, "but I'm afraid I'm only in the very beginning stages of my research. There's very little to tell, yet. Perhaps another time, when the project draws closer to fruition?"

"Actually, I think people here will be very interested in the whole process, and more than willing to help, if they know how. What types of information are you looking for?"

"Nothing very newsworthy, I'm afraid, Miss Starr. Family histories, property ownership, all very mundane things. It was a pleasure meeting you, though," he said dismissing her with a smile.

The reporter looked slightly disappointed, but acquiesced. "Fair enough. Maybe we can revisit this with an interview when the book comes out." She glanced around the room. "And, I should probably try and find my boyfriend. Did you see which way Damon went, Jenna?"

"Damon Salvatore?" Elijah asked, before Jenna could answer. "I believe I saw him head out toward the gardens a moment ago with some acquaintance of Mayor Lockwood's."

"Oh, good. Perhaps we'll meet again soon," she said, heading toward the french doors that led out to the terrace.

Elijah turned toward Jenna and gave her a charming smile. "I'm glad you're here, Jenna. This has been..." He let his eyes wander the over the flocks of women strewn about the room, grouped more or less by age and by how expensive their outfits and accessories were, and no doubt remarking on how expensive those of the other groups were. He turned back to her. "I'm glad you're here."

She laughed. "Yup. I've seen that look. You've been 'Caroled'."

"She's quite the social..." _Terrorist? Nazi? Barracuda?_ "...Planner, isn't she?"

"You have. No. Idea. Fundraisers, galas, historical reenactments, town celebrations... It's like there's an event every week." Jenna took his arm conspiratorially. "I should get you out of here before she drags you to the portrait room."

"There's a portrait room?"

"Oh yeah. And if you survive that_,_ it will be a full, guided tour of the gardens."

Elijah feigned horror. "Not that!"

"And if you _still_ haven't escaped, it will be an invite for dinner, an assignment to some committee or ten, and then... You, um, didn't tell her you were single, did you?"

Elijah winced and nodded.

Jenna looked around, then leaned in and dropped her voice. "It look's like Mrs. Fell has her cornered for the moment. You wanna make a break for it?"

"And leave you to her mercy? I wouldn't dream of it." He made a show of steeling himself, as though for battle. "At least not without first making my apologies. And not without you agreeing to go have coffee with me afterward," he added.

Jenna surveyed the room again, as though looking for someone. Someone she didn't find. "You know what? That's the best offer I've had all day."

* * *

His self-imposed embargo on 'distractions' notwithstanding, coffee with Jenna had extended into dinner, and it was dark by the time he took his leave of her and headed out toward the Salvatore boarding house. According to Jonas, the werewolves did not appear to have departed town, and Elijah rather expected another attempt on the Salvatores. He hoped that Elena was indeed safe with Stefan, wherever they were, and wasn't attacked while they were divided from the others.

Elijah rather thought that he'd prefer to have Elena in Damon's company, all things considered. Damon was still a very young vampire, but Elijah thought he showed potential. There was evidence of cunning in him, and a calculated ruthlessness to go with it. Couple those things with an acceptance of – if not a delight in – what he was, and Elijah could see Damon as a power player down the road, if only his impulsivity didn't lead him to do something lethally stupid over the next few centuries.

Then again, he thought ruefully, he'd done his share of rash and ill-conceived things when he was younger; they'd taught him some lessons, albeit the hard way, that he may otherwise not have learned. Perhaps when all this with Klaus was over he would consider employing Damon in some capacity – provided, of course, that the young vampire didn't drive Elijah to murder him himself between now and then.

Stefan Salvatore, though… Elijah didn't like that one's odds, long term. From what he had gathered, the younger Salvatore still clung to the semblance of a normal human life. Not that there was anything wrong with playing the part for others; that was only smart. But he suspected that Stefan was deceiving himself as well, and that particular charade didn't bode well for his long term survival. There came a time when a vampire either accepted what he was and learned to live within those new parameters, or he was dragged under by the chains that still bound him to a humanity he no longer truly possessed. Elijah feared that Stefan's time, though not yet quite expired, was drawing perilously close to its end. He would soon have to choose a side, because he would no longer be able to span the gap in between without snapping.

Elijah parked about a quarter of a mile away from the house, off of the road and in a spot where the car would be camouflaged by trees. Walking silently from there toward the boarding house, he heard voices from inside, and the unmistakable clank of chains. He sped the rest of the way down the driveway, quiet as the grave as he stole into the foyer.

"Where's the moonstone?" he heard Jules say, from a room off to the left. It figured. He had half expected the were-bitch to go off script. He only hoped his upcoming demonstration would convince her that she better get back with the program.

"Get over it, honey. You're never going to get it."

Elijah crossed his feet at the ankles and leaned casually against the door casing, sliding the moonstone from his pocket. "Are you looking for this?" The five werewolves turned and watched as he walked over and placed the moonstone on a table behind the sofa. Damon was chained to a chair in front of the fireplace, with a metal collar around his neck, wooden spikes on the inside jabbing into his neck and sending the occasional rivulet of blood down his throat. He looked almost as nonplused as the werewolves to see him.

Stepping back a couple of paces, Elijah gestured toward the rock. "Go ahead. Take it," he invited. One of the pack made a dash forward. Elijah was faster. He caught the man and punched into his chest cavity, pulling out his heart, then eased the body down onto the sofa in one smooth motion. Two more broke for the moonstone; he stopped one with each hand, ripping their hearts out as well and earning an approving look from Damon. Elijah locked eyes with Jules, who cut and ran for the door. He would 'discuss' this breach of behavior with her later.

The sole remaining werewolf squatted down on the floor and pulled his collar up around his head. Elijah had to pause a moment and marvel at how completely ludicrous it was. "What about you, sweetheart? Hmm?" he asked. Strolling over, he pulled the boy up by his jacket, sliding one hand inside, over the heart. "Want to take a shot? No? Yes? No?" Elijah made a show of looking around the room. "Where's the girl?"

"I don't know," Damon replied, glancing around.

"It doesn't really matter." He pulled his hand out of the young werewolf's jacket, only to draw his fist back and give him a neck-snapping right-cross. He was dead before he hit the floor. Elijah left him in a heap and went to stand in front of Damon.

Admiration warred with suspicion for supremacy over Damon's expression. Elijah smirked as he bent and broke the chain pinning Damon's arm to the chair, then took a firm grasp on the loops of chain around the younger vampire's stomach and snapped those. Stepping back, he shook hair out of his eyes. "You realize this is the third time I've saved your life now," he reminded him.

Damon wisely remained silent. Elijah recovered the moonstone from the table and left, leaving behind the four dead werewolves for the Salvatores to deal with.

* * *

Once he reached his car, he took his phone out and dialed Jonas, wondering where the warlock was and, more importantly, whether there were still more out there on Elena's tail. The call went to voicemail. Frowning, Elijah ended the call and dialed again. Again it rang six times and then went to voicemail.

Pulling out onto the road, he dialed Jules's number. That too went to voicemail, though he'd been expecting that from her. Once the pre-recorded message finished and he heard the requisite beep, he spoke: "Someone's been a very bad dog. I suggest you collect the Lockwood boy and remove yourselves from town until your presence is required. Because if you don't? I will kill you along with any other werewolf I find in Mystic Falls. I hope I've made myself clear."

He disconnected and drove over to Jonas's. The warlock's car was in the lot, so Elijah ascended the stairs toward the apartment. As he drew near the landing, he heard the sounds of shouting coming from the Martins' apartment. "… I said I'm sorry! Jesus!"

"You were supposed to be home _three hours_ ago!" Jonas shouted. "Where the hell have you been?"

"I was at the Grill!"

"With Bonnie Bennett?"

"Yes. No! I don't know!"

"What the hell do you mean you don't know?"

Having assured himself that the argument was a father-son squabble and not a more sinister conflict, Elijah turned back down the stairs and left. He could wait and speak with Jonas in the morning.


	8. Chapter 8

**I had hoped to just do one more section before delving into new territory, but it was going to be way too long. Jenna keeps wanting screen time, and she gets so little in the actual show that I hate to begrudge her here. So, next up: The Dinner Party. Of Doom!**

* * *

Elijah was waiting by the roadside at a little after sunrise, two coffees in hand, when Jenna pulled up and parked her Mini Cooper behind him. She waved and started fishing for something in the back seat. It appeared it was being recalcitrant; Elijah was treated to a rather nice view through the windshield as she turned full around and leaned over the back of the seat to reach whatever it was she was searching for.

No distractions, he reminded himself firmly, then wondered exactly how long it had been since he'd… been distracted. Decades, at least. It wasn't an urge that pestered him overmuch anymore. There were only so many anatomical possibilities, after all, and he had long since exhausted that rather extensive list. Still, every now and again someone piqued his interest, and right now it was piquing over Jenna Sommers. It surprised him more than a little to realize that it had everything to do with the woman herself and not her tertiary relationship to Elena Gilbert.

Jenna finally recovered what she was after and climbed out of the car, juggling several tubes that he supposed contained property maps. He hustled over to relieve her of the armload, laying them on the hood of his own car. "I didn't realize there were so many in the archive; I could have come and helped you with all this."

"Oh, it's fine. I wasn't sure where we'd end up going from here, so I just grabbed everything." She eyed the coffee like a starving wolverine eyeing a T-bone steak. "_Please_ tell me one of those is for me."

A few strands of her hair had fallen forward and were stuck in her lip gloss. He handed her one of the coffees and pushed the hair back, his attention lingering a little longer than he liked on her lips. _No distractions. _"Hazelnut, extra cream, three sugars."

"You remembered my coffee order?" she asked, blushing a little as she raked her hair back behind her ears.

"There are certain things a man should always remember when it comes to a woman: birthdays, anniversaries, and how she likes her coffee."

"Wow. How is it you're still single?" Jenna took a long swallow of coffee, and closed her eyes in pleasure. "Mmm," she sighed, low in her throat. "Perfect."

_No! Distractions!_

Elijah cleared his throat. "I guess I just haven't found the right girl, yet." He started sorting through the cylinders, checking the archive label of each until he found the correct one for the area they were in. Removing the parchment from the tube, he spread the age-stained map out along the hood for them to study as they finished their coffee.

Jenna hitched one hip on the car and looked back and forth from the map to the field in front of them. "Right there, that stone wall," she said, gesturing with her empty cup as she shielded her eyes from the sun with her other hand. She turned back to the map and pointed at a boundary line.

"Excellent. We have our reference point." Elijah rolled the map back up and tucked it under his arm while Jenna tossed the rest into a canvas bag that she slung over her shoulder.

They set off down the embankment and followed the old stone wall, out of the early morning sunlight and into the dappled shade at the edge of the woods. Dried, fallen leaves skittered around their ankles as they walked, remarking in whispers upon their passing. A squirrel dashed along the top of the stones, its plume of a tail streaming behind it as it dove headlong into dense foliage; occasionally a bird cried out overhead, startled from its perch by this sudden invasion into their world. The trees – some saplings, some ancient – kept a silent vigil over it all. It was no mystery why magic was drawn to gather in such places.

The wall ended perhaps thirty or forty feet into the trees. Elijah consulted the map again. "It looks like the property continued about another fifty yards or so, to a small stream. Do you have any idea if it's still there?"

"The stream? Yeah, I think so. It's probably pretty low this time of year." Jenna forged ahead as he re-rolled the parchment. "At the risk of sounding clueless, what exactly are you hoping to find by walking these old property lines?"

Elijah picked up a stick, idly peeling bark from it as they walked. "At the time the area was settled, many of the people would have put up some sort of hasty shelter to get them by before until they had a firmer foothold on the land. Sometimes you can find the remnants of these old cabins and such." They rounded a copse of trees, looping back toward the road, and came to a clearing around a small, dilapidated house.

"Like this?" Jenna pointed at the structure.

"Hmm... no, this looks newer, and probably larger than what the settlers would have begun with."

"That makes sense. I never really thought about it, but yeah, I guess all those antebellum mansions didn't just spring up overnight. Though I'm sure if you ask any of the founding families they'll tell you their ancestors never set foot in a one-room cabin. Speaking of which," Jenna pointed. "...the old Fell property actually starts just beyond that fence."

"Ah, the Fells. One of the 'founding families'."

"Why do you say it like that?"

Following the fence line, they headed back toward the cars. "My research showed me that this area was actually settled almost two full centuries earlier. There was a migration of townsfolk from the northeast. Um, it was Salem, to be precise."

"Massachusetts? As in the witch trials?"

Elijah nodded. "Which means the ever-lauded founding families didn't actually found anything."

Looking up, he saw a third car parked along with theirs. He tossed the stick and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he watched a figure approach: the history teacher Elena had spoken of. The one Jenna was currently dating. She hadn't spotted him yet.

"Well, I bet it was the men who made a big deal about being founders back in 1860," she said. "Men are very territorial."

"Yes," he agreed ruefully. "They are."

Jenna glanced in the direction he was staring and watched the teacher approach as well, looking surprised to see him; she didn't seem to have been expecting him. "Ah, Elijah, this is my... friend, Alaric Saltzman," she introduced, not sounding terribly thrilled about it. And wasn't _that_ just interesting?

"Yeah, I got your, uh, your message about walking Elijah here through the old property lines. I thought I would, um, tag along, you know, being a history buff and all." Saltzman looked from one of them to the other, a false smile plastered across his face. "Where to next?"

_History buff, my ass._ Elijah half-expected the man to start marking trees. "I'm pretty curious about the freed slave property owners," he answered. "Some say, you know, the descendants of the slaves are the true keepers of American history."

"Well, I only brought the surveys. I've got that bit in the car. Just give me a sec." Jenna headed toward the vehicles without waiting for an answer. Giving herself a moment to absorb this new development?

Elijah turned his attention from her fleeing figure to the man before him. "Alaric Saltzman," he drawled. "You're one of those people on Elena's list of loved ones to protect."

"Yeah, so is Jenna."

Irritation warred with amusement at this mere human bristling in front of him. "You don't have to be jealous," he said, cutting to the heart of the matter. "I rarely pursue younger women." Though, if the timing were different, he would be sorely tempted to do just that. Saltzman didn't answer. Elijah just shook his head. "It's a joke, Ric," he said, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed him to go help Jenna at the car. "Lighten up."

Elijah rejoined Jenna, leaving Saltzman to catch up. What the man sought to accomplish with this fool's errand, he didn't know. As if he had any intention of harming Jenna! And even if he had, what exactly did the schoolteacher think he could do about it? Surely he wasn't so foolish as to think that one of his homemade stake-o-matic contraptions posed any threat to _him_. No, more than likely it was his own romantic interests Saltzman sought to preserve, not Jenna's safety. Elijah wondered how much Jenna introducing him as a 'friend' had rankled.

"According to this list," she said, as he drew even with her, "we'll have to go down the road a few miles and cross the river, then up the hill to the old Reilly property."

"What exactly do you hope to find on those properties now?" Alaric asked, joining them.

"Well, that's the beauty of it. One never knows what one might stumble across when he starts exploring the unplumbed depths of the past," he replied airily. "But I'm sure you can relate to that. You know, being a _history buff_ and all."

"Right. Yeah. Yay, discovery." Saltzman made an inane little rah-rah gesture.

"There's no sense taking three cars," Jenna pointed out. "Since I've got everything in here anyway, we may as well take mine."

"Of course." Elijah went around the passenger side. Opening the door, he flipped the front seat forward, then stepped back, gesturing to Saltzman – several inches taller than him, and with much longer legs – to climb into the tiny car's miniscule back seat.

The teacher gave him a faltering smile and, with some effort, got himself folded into the car. Elijah pushed the seat back, where it banged against Saltzman's knees. He declined to pull the seat forward as he got in himself and fastened his seatbelt, smiling at Jenna. "Lead on, milady," he said, laying a British accent on thick and making her giggle.

Saltzman grunted in the back seat, hitting his head against the roof as the car bounced onto the road and drove away.

* * *

Jenna breathed an audible sigh of relief as Alaric got into his own vehicle and drove away. They had spent the better part of four hours, the three of them, touring the properties on Jenna's list. During that time, Elijah had witnessed an increasing annoyance on Jenna's part with her erstwhile suitor, and a corresponding increase in desperation on the part of the schoolteacher. Weak attempts at wit had been met with withering silence, and the whole mess had devolved into a rather charged and awkward silence.

Elijah was delighted.

"So – " Jenna began.

"That – " Elijah said at the same time.

Jenna laughed, breaking the tension. "Sorry. You first."

"I was just going to thank you for a lovely morning."

She lifted an eyebrow at him. "Really?"

"Uh, no." He screwed his mouth up into a rueful expression, making her laugh again.

"I am so sorry. I had no idea he was going to just appear like that."

"No, don't apologize. I take it the two of you are..."

Her breath came out in a huff. "I don't know _what_ we are right now, honestly."

Elijah leaned back against the car, crossing his arms and his ankles. "Trouble in paradise?"

"Paradise. Hah! It's... He... I..." Jenna raked her hair back in frustration. "I don't know. I like him, we have a great time together... I just... Sometimes it just feels like he's hiding things from me, and I don't know what to do with that."

"Another woman?" _Plant a little seed, see what grows..._

"Not exactly." Jenna leaned against the car alongside him, mirroring his posture, her hip brushing his. "He was married once, and she died. There were 'mysterious' circumstances..."

"Such as?"

"That's just it! I don't know. He doesn't want to talk about it, and I get that, but... What if he isn't really over her? Or..."

"Or?" he prompted.

Jenna shook her head, as though to clear it. "Nothing."

_She's wondering if he had something to do with it._ "Perhaps he just isn't ready yet."

"Yeah. Maybe." She slapped her palms lightly against her thighs and pushed off of the car. "_Any_way, that's enough of "Jenna's Travails With The Opposite Sex.' Did you at least get anything out of the search you can use?"

"Oh, everything proves useful in one way or another." He caught her hand as she turned to gather the maps and lists. "Let me take you to lunch. It's the least I can do after you traipsing all over hell and beyond with me."

She seemed to consider for a moment, then tilted her head and smiled. "I would love to have lunch with you, Mr. Smith." She paused. "Why does that always sound like an alias?"

Elijah raised his hands in mock surrender. "That's it, you've found me out." He made a show of looking all around them before leaning down to whisper, in a deliberately bad Russian accent, "I'm really Russian spy, sent to find evidence of the lost Tsar amongst the slave populace of the American South." Sliding a hand into his breast pocket, he withdrew a pencil. "This is my link to the former Soviet satellite system..."

Jenna shoved him playfully, laughing. "Get in the car, _comrade_."

* * *

_This is a mistake_, Elijah thought to himself, even as he walked into the Grille with Jenna. If he was trying to remain free of distraction, he was going about it in the most wrong way possible. He had research to do. He had plans to draw up with Jonas. He had a sacrifice ritual to plan in such a way as to render the actual sacrifice unnecessary. What he did _not_ have was time to be... _playing_ with some human woman. Even one as endearing as Jenna Sommers. _Especially_ one as endearing as Jenna Sommers.

Despite being distracted, Elijah noticed Damon, Alaric and Andie Starr the moment he entered, and smiled to himself when he heard Damon announce to Saltzman, "Look, there's Jenna with her new boyfriend." Damon raised his hand and waved them over. Elijah followed Jenna to their table.

"So," Damon said, "I hear you two had quite the meeting of historical minds today." Elijah merely raised a brow at him.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," Jenna answered.

Alaric rose from the table. "Well, as much as I'd like to continue this, I have papers to grade."

"You know what?" Andie said, sitting up straighter. "We _should_ continue this. Let's have a dinner party."

Damon looked immediately taken with the idea. "Ooh, my girl! Full of good ideas. I'll be happy to host," he volunteered. "Say, tonight maybe?"

"It's good for me," Andie agreed readily. "Jenna?"

Alaric shook his head. "Nah, I don't know if tonight works – "

"Yeah, I'm free," Jenna broke in. She looked up at Elijah questioningly.

"It would be a pleasure," he agreed.

"Great!" Damon enthused. He and the girls conferred on the details of food and drink for a few moments while he and Alaric stood by, Alaric looking slightly dyspeptic at the idea of the whole thing. Elijah resisted the sophomoric urge to taunt him further. Once they'd arrived at a suitable time, the teacher beat a hasty retreat from the restaurant, retiring the field. The arrangements thus made, Elijah escorted Jenna to an open booth.

And wondered just what the devil Damon Salvatore was up to _now_.


	9. Chapter 9

**Woo! Finally up to the point where we left off for the hiatus (well, where Elijah left off, anyway). Next section, the fun REALLY begins. :-D**

**

* * *

**Elijah's cell phone beeped just as he was pulling into the Salvatore driveway. He checked the display and took the call. "Jonas."

"Hey. Any luck with the property search this morning?"

"It's difficult to say. There are a couple of areas that might correspond, but I'll need your expertise to tell me if what we need is there."

"I marked some possibles in an atlas that I wanted you to look at; I figured you'd stop by last night."

Elijah parked and exited the car. "I did. From the yelling, it seemed an inopportune time. More teenage drama?"

"Don't even get me started."

"I'll stop over later. Right now I'm attending a dinner party at the Salvatore house."

"Um…"

"Exactly. Later." Elijah slid the phone into his pocket and rang the doorbell. Damon answered in short order. "Good evening," Elijah greeted him.

"Thank you for coming. Please, come in." Damon plastered a smile on his face and stepped to the side to motion him in.

"One moment." Elijah ran his fingers down the wood of the door frame. "Can I just say that, if you have less than honorable intentions about how this evening is going to proceed, I suggest you reconsider."

"No, nothing dishonorable," he said, perfectly innocent. "Just, uh, getting to know you."

Someone was certainly putting on the good, little, cowed vampire act. Elijah didn't believe it for a second. "Hmm. Well that's good." Stepping through the doorway, he stopped next to Damon, speaking quietly. "Because, you know, although Elena and I have this deal, if you so much as make a move to cross me, I'll kill you and I'll kill everyone in this house. Are we clear?"

Damon's smile faltered infinitesimally. "Crystal."

Jenna stepped out into the foyer at that moment. She had spurned the blouse and jeans she'd been wearing earlier in favor of a form-fitting cocktail dress in midnight blue. The material along the sleeves and collar bones was sheer, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of what was under the denser fabric below. "Jenna! Wonderful to see you again," he called, holding his hands out and touching her shoulders as he drew near. "How are you? You look incredible."

"Oh, this old thing…" she said, blushing and obviously pleased by the compliment.

They made their way into the large living room, where Andie Starr was standing in front of the fireplace, talking with a man Elijah recognized as John Gilbert, Elena's ersatz uncle and biological father. Saltzman stood a little off to the side, idly flipping through a leather-bound book and looking daggers at Elijah as he stepped into the room with Jenna, one hand resting lightly on the small of her back as he gestured her ahead of him with the other.

"Ric! You made it. I'm pleased to see you were able to free yourself up after all." Elijah's smile made it plain he was anything but.

"I'm sure you are," Ric smiled back, just as sincere.

"Elijah!" Andie motioned John to follow and came over to take his hands in greeting. "John Gilbert, Elijah Smith," she said, by way of introduction. The two men shook hands and made the requisite mouth noises at each other, in keeping with the pretense that each didn't know full well who – and what – the other was.

"Yeah," Jenna turned toward him and stage-whispered, "We don't know why he's here either."

Damon came in through a smaller door at the other end of the room, carrying two bottles of wine and some glasses. Passing the latter around, he peeled the label from the first bottle of wine and popped the cork. "Let's get this party started!"

* * *

By the time they sat down to dinner – a Tuscan herbed chicken, roasted red potatoes, asparagus, a pear and spinach salad, and bread with dipping oil – they had consumed three bottles of wine and were well into the fourth. The spirits had made Jenna flushed and even more prone to giggling than usual, a fact that probably wouldn't have charmed him so much if it weren't for this nagging predisposition to find everything the woman did charming.

In sharp contrast to her joviality, Alaric was quiet, as was John Gilbert, save for the occasional barbed volley shot back and forth between the two. Elijah was certain he was missing part of the story there, but whatever the reason, it was clear that the two shared a profound dislike of one another.

Andie played the roll of hostess to the hilt, making sure everyone's glasses remained full and keeping the conversation going whenever a lull threatened. Elijah could have done without her cloying and near constant displays of affection toward Damon. Between the adolescent-like infatuation and the conspicuous scarf around her neck, he suspected that she was Damon's chew toy as well as his bedmate, though she lacked that caged look behind the eyes that one typically saw in victims of chronic compulsion. He wondered suddenly if Damon were ignorant of the technique of applying a little of his own blood topically to close a bite wound, or if he merely enjoyed having a visual display of his dominance over his playthings. Given that he was sired – and immediately abandoned – by Katerina Petrova, Elijah assigned even odds to either possibility.

"I hate to break it to you, Damon," Jenna said, following a discussion of various Founder's Day activities, "but according to Elijah, your family is_ so_ not a founder of this town."

"Hmm, do tell." The younger vampire eyed him speculatively.

"Well, as I mentioned to Jenna earlier, a faction of settlers migrated from Salem after the witch trials in the 1690's. Over the next hundred years they developed this community where they could feel safe from persecution."

"Because they were witches," Jenna announced, as though the concept were prurient and slightly wicked.

"You know, there is no tangible proof that there were witches in Salem." This from Andie, who didn't appear to have had anywhere near as much wine as Jenna.

"Andie's a journalist. Big on facts," Damon explained, unnecessarily.

"Well, the lore says there was this wave of anti-witch hysteria," Elijah continued. "It broke out in a neighboring settlement. So these witches were rounded up. They were tied to stakes in a field together and burned. Some say you could hear the screams for miles around as they were consumed by the fire." He remembered it all quite fondly, actually. _Good times._ "Could you pass the…" he gestured toward the wine.

"I wouldn't repeat this to the historical society," Jenna cautioned.

"Sounds a little like a ghost story to me." John looked skeptical, though that could have been a cover for a familial knowledge passed down through the generations of the Gilbert family. The first John Gilbert had been ridiculously troublesome, always digging at things better left alone.

"So, why do you want to know the location of these alleged massacres?" Damon asked, sipping his wine.

"Oh, healthy historian's curiosity, of course."

"Of course." Damon's expression made it plain that he believed no such thing. He wasn't stupid, Elijah would give him that. More and more, he found himself hoping that Damon Salvatore didn't do anything that would necessitate him having to kill him. He appreciated a quick mind.

With everyone apparently done eating, Andie rose and starting stacking the plates. "The gentlemen should take their drinks in the study," she suggested, a little too brightly. Elijah wondered anew just how much the woman was under Damon's compulsion, especially after the 'good girl!' look he shot her.

"I have to say, the food was almost as wonderful as the company," Elijah complimented her.

"I like you!" she said, flirty and charming. And not looking at all compelled.

Elijah mulled it over as he followed Damon to the study. There was no way the young vampire could be that skilled at manipulation, not at a mere 145 years old. Perhaps the journalist was one of those driven, career women who liked to play the dominance-submission game at home. It was moot anyway, he decided, running his hands over the mahogany wood of the banister. One didn't ask another vampire impertinent questions about his 'toys'. It simply wasn't done.

"So let me guess," Damon said, pouring a deep, richly colored brandy into two crystal snifters. "In addition to the moonstone, the doppelganger, the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, you need to find this witch burial ground."

_Quick, and perceptive. _"Because I feel we've grown so close, Damon, I'll tell you: yes." He studied him for a moment. "Do you know where it is?"

"Maybe." Damon handed him one of the brandies. "Tell me why it's so important."

"Not _that_ close." At least not until he could be assured of a certain amount of loyalty from the younger vampire.

Elijah turned his attention to the shelves lining the room. Floor to ceiling, leather-clad spines abounded. He recognized many of them. The classics, history, military history, philosophy… "It's quite the collection you have here," he said, impressed.

"Mmm."

"Here's a funny thing about books: Before they existed, people actually had memories."

Before he could ruminate further on that thought, Alaric entered the study, Andie following closely on his heels. "Ah, gentlemen, we forgot dessert."

"Elijah?" Andie flirtily held her hand out to him.

"Miss Starr," he drawled, playing along. He took her hand and spun her out of the room, startling a laugh out of her.

"I bet you would cut quite a figure on the dance floor. Hmm?" She eyed him speculatively.

"I've been known to dance, a time or two."

"Well we're just going to have to try that out sometime."

"There'll probably be an opportunity for that if you're in town long enough, Elijah, what with all the fundraisers and festivals Carol has us throwing," Jenna said, poking her head out of the kitchen for a moment and handing Andie a coffee pot. "Sorry guys. Dessert is taking longer than I thought. I usually just unwrap food."

She slipped back into the kitchen as Alaric and Damon filed out of the study, joining him and John at the table while Andie poured the coffee. "So, I know this is a social thing," Andie said, once she'd sat down, "but I would really love to ask you some more questions about the work that you're doing here."

She _was_ persistent. "I'd love to answer," he capitulated, if only to pass the time.

"Great! That's great. Alaric, would you hand me that notebook out of my bag?" The schoolteacher went to go fetch.

"Elijah," Damon said, apropos of nothing, "did John tell you that he's Elena's uncle-slash-father?"

"Yes, I'm well aware of that." And apparently there was no love lost between he and Damon, understandably so. Which made the man's presence all the more perplexing.

"Of course, she hates him, so there's absolutely no need to keep him on the endangered species list."

"No Ric, it's in the front pocket, on the… You know what? Excuse me guys, sorry." Andie jumped up to go retrieve her notebook, a task apparently beyond Alaric.

Ignoring Damon, John leaned forward, elbows on the table. "What I'd like to know, Elijah, is how you intend on killing Klaus?"

So was _that_ the purpose of this little gathering? They'd all break bread together, have a few glasses of wine, and he'd just open up and unroll his entire plan before them? Suddenly weary of the whole charade, Elijah lowered his voice, dead serious. "Gentlemen, there are a few things we should probably get clear right now." He pointed his fork at Damon. "I allow you to live solely to keep an eye on Elena. I allow Elena to remain in her house, living her life with her friends, as she does, as a courtesy. If you become a liability, I'll take her away from you and you'll never see her again."

Notebook finally in hand, Andie reclaimed her seat across the table. "Okay, my first question is… when you got here to Mystic Falls…"

The pain that suddenly tore like lightning through his chest was absolute agony. He cried out as his heart erupted into a white-hot ball of flame, sending boiling acid pulsing through his veins with every weakening pulse. Gulping for breath – to say _what_, he didn't know – he saw, through his graying vision, the point of a narrow dagger protruding from his chest. He had just long enough to realize what it was before he no longer felt or thought anything.

* * *

When he _could_ feel and think again, he was lying on a cold stone floor. A small amount of light, enough for him to see by, filtered in through the window and under the door. The room looked to be in a basement. There was a heavy-looking wooden door with a high, barred window, not that he expected it would so much as slow him down if he wanted out.

Listening, he heard voices upstairs, the same voices with whom he'd so recently been conversing. _They took it out!_ That could mean one of two things: either they had had no intention of killing him, and just wanted to make a – _heh_ – point; or, and this was the more likely scenario, they didn't _know._

Yet they had the dagger. No one – _no one_ – had known its whereabouts for the last two centuries. There had been any number of stories, rumors, theories, etc., but none had borne any fruit. God knew Klaus had looked high and low for it, to no avail. And now, here it was. Had the Gilbert family kept it squirreled away all this time? Had the first Jonathan Gilbert been that lucky in his endless research? Somehow he doubted luck had had as much to do with it as the presence of one Katerina Petrova, here in Mystic Falls as a contemporary of Gilbert's.

And just what did _Elena _Gilbert know? Damon had said she'd gone away with Stefan for a little R&R, and to get away from the werewolf threat. Was that true, or had she simply put herself out of his immediate reach in case this attempt on his life had gone awry?

_Oh, it had most assuredly gone awry._

Getting silently to his feet, Elijah weighed his options. He could do as he had threatened Damon: he could go upstairs and kill each and every one of them, up to and including Jenna, leaving nothing but a pile of broken and lifeless bodies in his wake. They would all be dead before any of them even realized that he had awakened. Or, he could make an object lesson out of just _one_ of them… he wracked his brain for a moment, trying to recall just who had been where. Damon had been at one end of the table, John at the other. Andie was sitting across from him… that left just Jenna and… _Alaric_.

But what if Elena hadn't known? What if Damon, or John, _or Alaric_ had dreamt this whole thing up while she was away, without her knowledge or approval? He'd given his word to her – to _her_ – that he would protect her loved ones from harm. Could he in good conscience slaughter over half the people on that list, no matter how viciously provoked, without first knowing?

_She isn't Katerina._

And that thought, above all else, really left him with only one option. He had to get to Elena.

* * *

Not wanting to alert them to his resurrection by driving away in his car, Elijah ran, at speed, through the woods until he reached town and the Martins' apartment complex. Taking the stairs two at a time, he burst into the apartment without knocking, startling both Jonas and Luka where they sat at the table.

Jonas took in the state of his torn, dirty and bloodied clothing. "What happened?"

"I need you to find Elena. Now."

"What did they – "

"Now!"

Jonas swallowed the urge to say more and turned toward the cupboard, rummaging inside for the items he had stolen from Elena. "Luka, get the candles ready," he instructed his son.

The boy didn't move, just sat staring at Elijah, as he had since he'd burst into the room.

"Luka!" Jonas raised his voice to get his attention.

"I'm sorry," Luka murmured.

"What?" Jonas stood up, hands on his hips.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to. I don't even know... I'm sorry!"

Elijah stepped toward the table. Luka shrank back in his chair. "Jonas, do the damn spell," Elijah gritted out. Easing himself into the chair across from Luka, he tried for a calm, even tone. "Luka, what are you sorry for?"

To the horror of all three of them, Luka burst into tears.

Jonas would have left off preparing the spell again and headed toward his son had Elijah not looked him off with a particularly vicious glare. He took a deep breath to get himself under control before turning back to the boy.

"Please," Luka begged, before Elijah could say anything. "Please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean say anything, but they did something, I don't know what, and I must have told them something." Luka swiped his sleeve across his face. "Just don't take it out on Dad and Greta, okay?" Another sob shook the boy. "It's my fault, don't take it out on them. Help him get Greta back. Please!"

Elijah rose from the chair and walked around the table.

"Is that why you were so late last night, Luka?" Jonas asked. "Did Bonnie Bennett do some kind of a spell on you?"

"I'm s-s-s-sorry, Dad." He wiped at his face again, then buried his face in his hands. "Punish me, it's okay," he said to Elijah, his words muffled, "just help Dad find Greta."

Elijah took Luka by the shoulders. The boy stiffened under his hands, and he saw, out of his peripheral vision, Jonas start to move toward them, then hesitate. "Luka, look at me," he said softly. Luka drew in a shuddering breath, sniffled, and did as he was told. "I gave your father my word that we would go and get Greta as soon as Klaus is out of the way. I have no intention of breaking it because that Bennett girl used magic on you to try and obtain information that you don't even possess. You couldn't have told her anything of importance."

"What if I t-told her about the doppelganger? That you plan to k-k-kill her?"

Was that what had set this evening's chain of events in motion? Elijah doubted very much that that would be news to Elena. To her friends, perhaps, but not to her. And if he had his way, it was old news at that. "Luka. You did nothing wrong. Everything will be fine." Elijah straightened, giving Luka's shoulder a pat as he released him. "Go on. Let me speak to your father." Luka nodded and went to his room, shutting the door behind him.

Elijah turned to Jonas. "Find Elena, and then – for Christ sake! – get your ass over there and do something about that little witch!"

* * *

He parked Jonas's car well away from the house on the lake, wanting to keep his approach a secret for as long as possible. Stefan Salvatore worried him not at all, but he didn't want to take the chance that Elena would bolt and injure herself, or worse, running through the woods at the water's edge in the dead of night. As he walked quietly down the driveway, he could see lights on in the house, and hear movement. He suspected they were waiting for him.

Crouching down, he scooped up a handful of rocks from the driveway, shifting them from hand to hand as he contemplated both the windows and the door.

"He's here," he heard Stefan say.

So much for the element of surprise. Elijah drew his arm back and aimed the stones at the door. They shattered it on impact, taking it completely off its hinges.

"You need to go," Elena told Stefan. "I have to talk to him alone."

"Elena - "

"Stefan, it's okay. He can't come in the house."

"You know, I might not be able to enter this house, but I'm a very patient man," he called, stepping onto porch. "I'll wait you out."

Elijah heard footsteps, and Elena shuffled around a corner, into view, her arms crossed protectively in front of her. "They shouldn't have done with they did."

Indeed. "The deal is off." He needed to make that clear to her; whether she'd known beforehand or only learned of it afterward, she needed to understand that, as far as he was concerned, the others were now fair game.

"I'm renegotiating."

"You have nothing left to negotiate with," he reminded her.

Elena uncrossed her arms to reveal a knife, though what she thought she might accomplish with such a paltry weapon, he didn't know. "I'd like to see you lure Klaus into Mystic Falls after the doppelganger bleeds to death."

A hollow threat. "Stefan won't let you die."

"No, he won't. He'll feed me his blood to heal me, and then I'll kill myself and become a vampire just like Katherine did. So unless you want that to happen again, promise me the same as before. Promise me that you won't harm anyone that I love, even if they've harmed you."

_She isn't Katerina._ Katerina had used Rose and Trevor mercilessly to insure such a fate for herself, never caring what became of anyone else. But Elena... Elena _cared_. It was in her eyes as she pleaded with him, in her voice, in her hand that trembled even now, holding the knife. She might threaten to harm herself, yet even as she did so, she begged for the lives of her loved ones. She wouldn't put them all at risk by turning now and drawing Klaus's ire down on the whole lot of them.

"I'm sorry, Elena," he told her softly. "I'm going to have to call your bluff."

He saw her swallow once, hard, and look down at the knife in her hand. She turned it a little, and took a deep breath as though to brace herself. Elijah had a split second to watch the resolve harden in her eyes, to realize that he had misread her; then her arm came up, and she plunged the knife into her abdomen.

"NO!" He roared, surging forward, only to slam up against the barrier of the threshold. Elena writhed in pain, dropping the bloodied knife to the floor as she curled in upon herself, upon the pain. He looked around wildly, trying to gauge how much of the house he might have to tear apart before that barrier gave way and he could reach her, could save her. Too long. _Too long!_ "Yes!" he capitulated. "Yes, you can have your deal. Let me heal you!"

She moaned, gritting her teeth against the pain. "Give me your word!"

"I give you my word," he agreed.

Elena staggered toward him, popping free of the threshold and into his waiting arms. Relief flared quickly – and died just as suddenly as fire once again exploded in his chest. Shock mingled with the agony, an agony magnified a thousand-fold by virtue of whose hand had dealt it. He clung to her still as his flesh started to grey and his knees gave out, unable to believe how badly he had misjudged her, seeing what he had wanted to see instead of what was there...

_And thus, I die a fool._


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note: Hmm. Okay, this may sound kinda weird, but others of you who write may be able to relate (or you may just think I'm nuts; it could go either way): Even though you spend a lot of time plotting a story and being inside a character's head space, sometimes they still surprise you. Elijah took this whole thing a little harder than I expected him to. I didn't anticipate that tonal shift. As always, though, I'm anxious to see where he takes me. :-)**

**

* * *

**

_Blood._

It was the first thing that crept into his awareness. His throat convulsed on it, cold and thick, and a little stale to the taste. But it jump-started his heart, filling and soothing the dry, ragged veins as it flowed through his system. Six swallows, seven, then he pushed it away and sat up, opening his eyes.

He was back in the Salvatore house, once again on the basement floor. And he wasn't alone.

Andie Starr crouched next to him, holding the blood bag from which she'd just fed him. "More?" she offered.

Before she could blink, he had her pinned to the wall with a hand on her throat and his body weight pressed against hers, knocking the bag out of her hand to splash on the floor a few feet away. She held herself still, even relaxed, making no effort to struggle lest she risk inciting him further. Letting the wall and his hand support her weight, she returned his gaze calmly, and waited.

"_Explain_," he growled, his face close to hers.

Andie rolled her eyes down to his forearm, then back to his face, and raised an eyebrow. Elijah relaxed his grip, but didn't let go of her completely.

She cleared her throat. "Easy, tiger. If I weren't here to help you, I wouldn't be feeding you, and I wouldn't have pulled _that_ out." She tilted her head to indicate the dagger, lying on the floor next to the spot where his body had lain.

Reluctantly conceding the point, he removed his hand from her and stepped back a couple of paces, careful to keep himself between her and the weapon. Andie rubbed at her neck and slid along the wall toward the door, which had something hanging from it.

"How long?" he rasped out.

"Two weeks, or thereabouts." She grabbed the thing from the door as he stifled an oath. "There's a lot to catch you up on." Her tone brightened considerably. "But first, maybe you'd like to, oh, I don't know, put some _pants_ on or something?" She held up what turned out to be a garment bag. "Not that I don't enjoy the view…"

Elijah glanced down. He _was_ naked. He took stock of the room as he accepted and unzipped the bag. Charred remnants of what he presumed to have been his clothing littered the grey stone. That, and the flamethrower propped in a dark corner of the room, gave him a pretty good indication of what had occurred. He had a guess as to who had wielded it; his dark sense of humor asserted itself as he imagined Damon Salvatore's expression when he had realized that Elijah's corpse wouldn't burn.

"Are we alone?" he asked, with a glance toward the ceiling.

She gave him a look of mock flirtation. "Why, what did you have in mind? You Originals must have quite the powers of recovery, if you can go from being a stiff to having a – "

"Andie..." He warned.

"Fine! Jeez. Watch where you aim that look. You could hurt someone." She leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms. "Yes, we're alone. No one should be back for at least a few hours."

"Then I'm taking a shower." Before heading out of the room, he made it a point to retrieve the dagger.

"There are seven of them upstairs. Take your pick."

He paused next to her in the doorway on his way out the door. What had Jenna said about men being territorial? "Which one is Damon's?"

She chuckled approvingly. "Follow me.

* * *

Ten minutes (and the shedding of layer upon layer of grime that he didn't care to name) later, Elijah rejoined Andie in the library. She held a brandy out to him. "Or, there's more blood downstairs if you'd prefer," she offered.

Elijah wrinkled his nose in distaste. "That stuff is vile. I prefer it warm, and a whole lot fresher."

She held up a hand. "Don't look at me, pal. I gave at the office."

Accepting the brandy, Elijah withdrew the dagger from the inside jacket of his pocket. "Where is the rest?"

"Huh? Oh!" Andie opened the liquor cabinet and withdrew an ornate wooden box. Opening it, she grabbed the antique bottle of white oak ash, and passed it to him. Elijah pocketed it along with the dagger and seated himself in one of the overstuffed chairs flanking the fireplace, gesturing her toward the other. "All right. Talk. You can start by explaining who you are. Clearly, you're no reporter."

"Hey! The 8% hike in ratings since I joined the station would argue otherwise, thank you very much." She took a sip of her own brandy. "But that's not why I'm here, no."

"So why _are_ you here?"

"Guess."

He eyed her speculatively. "You're a witch."

Andie smiled at him and raised her glass in a mock toast. "Got it in one."

"So this… _thing_ with Damon…"

"Was an act. I needed to keep track of what he – what they – were up to. And I could do that best by being his compulsively dedicated little – "

"Chew toy?" Elijah flicked a glance toward the bite marks, now uncovered, along her neck. "_Brava_. You're dedication is outstanding."

"You have. No. Idea."

"Oh, I think I have some." He sipped at his brandy. "So, a witch. One of Klaus's, I presume."

"Nothing wrong with your brain."

"Nothing at all. Which is why I don't believe for a moment that Klaus would want me reanimated. I presume he's now aware of…" _Of Elena._ "…of the doppelganger?"

"Elijah, Klaus has been aware of her almost since the moment_ you _have." She relaxed back into the chair, tucking her feet underneath her. "Did you really think he had just let you run off in a tiff, without having someone – several someones – keeping an eye on you?"

He hardly thought a profound difference in world view, and the future of humanity in it, qualified as "a tiff," but he let it slide. "Where is he, then? Why wait? Why not crash in here and snap her out from under my nose?"

"Why do all the work locating the moonstone, securing a werewolf, etc., when he can sit back and let you do it for him?"

_Yes_, he thought bitterly. That sounded like Klaus. Always leaving him to do the dirty work, then swooping in at the last minute to collect the spoils.

"Besides, he hoped that, if he left you out there on the front line, so to speak, you'd draw the dagger out of hiding. Which you did. All very neat and tidy." She waggled a finger at him. "You're dead and removed as a threat, same with the dagger, all of the components to break the curse are in place…"

"And now he can come waltzing into town with everything at the ready." Elijah nodded. Pure, vintage Klaus.

"I sent him the all clear signal myself." She shook her empty snifter at him.

Elijah gamely took the glass from her and refilled it at the bar. "Which means that you're now working off-script." He handed her the drink and sat, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "This would be the part where you start explaining why, and just exactly what your stake in all this is."

Andie drained the glass in two swallows, as though to steel herself. "Simple. I want a deal."

"A deal."

"You know, one of those arrangements where I do something for you, you do something for me…"

"I'm familiar with the concept," he said drily.

"You need a witch, I – "

"I have a witch."

She lifted her eyebrows, then looked down and away. "Yeah… about that…"

Elijah let the silence sit, charged, as his mind raced over the possibilities, none of them good. "I think you'd better bring me up to date," he said grimly.

Andie sighed, then squared her shoulders. "The Martins are dead."

_Dead._ The Martins. Plural.

"Stefan tried to talk to them, to get them to work with him and Damon, but… Jonas didn't go for it."

"What happened?" Elijah asked softly, dead calm.

"I wasn't here, so I don't know exactly, but from what I've been able to gather, they took an astral walk to locate you. Jonas wanted you resurrected." Andie started fidgeting with a loose thread along the arm of the chair. "They found you, here, but instead of leaving it at that and coming back when no one was around, Luka tried to take the dagger out – "

"_Luka_ did?"

"He was the one being projected. He wouldn't have had the skill or power to anchor the spell. Jonas would have had to do it and send Luka." She worked another thread loose. "Anyway, Katherine – who I'm not supposed to know is staying here, by the way – saw the dagger moving, and…"

_Katerina. Damn it! With him dead, of _course_ she'd be free to leave the tomb. And wreak God only knew what havoc with her particular brand of chaos._

"And?" he whispered.

She shifted in the chair, went back to worrying at the fabric. "Damon… Damon grabbed the flamethrower, and…" Andie straightened in the chair and met his eyes, reluctantly. "How much do you know about the mind/body link when it comes to this kind of magic?"

"Enough." Enough to realize, with a sick feeling opening a chasm in the pit of his stomach, just what would have happened to the boy when the flames swept over his spirit form.

"Jonas…" Andie lifted her hands, let them drop into her lap. "He went off the reservation, Elijah. He showed up at the Grille, hollering for Elena. He set it on fire, he stabbed some busboy in the neck, threw a bunch of people around… and then he went after Elena at her house. They had to kill him to keep him from taking her. He just... went crazy."

"His child was dead," he murmured, his own words rising like gorge to coat the back of his throat in bitterness: _The boy need not do anything other than make friends at his new school. Surely there's no harm in that?_

Elijah's scalp began prickling until the whole of it felt electrified. Sparks sprouted in his chest and ignited flames that pushed outward to limn his nerves in fire, all the way to the ends of his extremities. His lungs heaved, dragging in air in great gulps even though he had no real need to breathe. A rushing sound roared into his ears on the tide of a rapidly increasing heart rate, as the veins around his eyes engorged and turned them red.

He had long ago drawn the conclusion that, with strength and power such as he possessed, the sheer devastation that he could cause by indulging in a fit of pique was seldom in proportion to whatever had provided its catalyst in the first place. Consequently, Elijah very, _very_ rarely lost his temper.

He lost it now.

Outdoors, with no real sense of how he'd gotten there save through the imperative to flee the confines of the house, he tore into the treeline and lay waste to whatever he found in his path. Trees, brush, boulders, a small shed… all were pulverized as he shredded, tossed, or crushed whatever came to hand as he whipped through in a blind rage.

And why not? Hadn't he been making as big a mess out of everything he'd laid hands to since he'd left Manhattan? Always scrambling to get one step ahead, misjudging one situation after another… all in some vain and futile attempt to get something – anything – over on Klaus? And when had he _ever_ been able to do that? Instead, he'd done all of Klaus's prep work for him and played right into his hands, and what in hell did he have to show for it?

_Nothing._ Nothing but a dead boy, and a grief-maddened father who had followed him through the gates of death, seeking to answer for such an affront. Nothing but a hole through his heart that still bled from the betrayal that had pierced it. Nothing but a cold certainty that, despite his efforts and whatever they had cost him, Klaus would have his way again, just as he always did.

"Are you finished?" Andie asked quietly, from a little distance away.

Elijah turned his head to look at her, seeing as he did so the scope of the destruction he'd left in his wake, and climbed wearily to his feet from where he'd dropped to his knees. _Was_ he finished? Was there any point left in fighting it? He could walk off this property, leave town, let Klaus have his ritual and break his curse, go hole up someplace quiet and solitary and just watch the world go by.

Whatever would be left of it.

The witch stood still, facing him, arms crossed as she waited to see what he would do.

"This deal," he said at last, his voice hoarse. "What do you want?"

Evidently deciding he was through dealing violence for the time-being, Andie led him out of the carnage and back toward the house. "Klaus may make a big show out of hating technological advancement, but he's the first to latch onto anything that he can twist to his advantage. He's developed quite an obsession with genetics. All these centuries of stealing witches and locking them up, never finding one who had enough strength combined with the innate talent… I guess he decided, if he can't find the perfect witch, he'll figure out a way to breed one." Andie paused at the open terrace door, and turned to face him, full on.

"I want the same deal you offered Jonas. I help you kill Klaus. In return," she said, "you help me get my son."

Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that. "Your son?"

"Yeah. My son." She held her hand out to him. "Do we have a deal?"

_Because _that's_ working out so swimmingly_. Bloody hell. Here he stood, the blood of one child still slick on his fingers, and she wanted to thrust the fate of another into them? How dare she? How dare _he_? Hadn't all of this demonstrated quite profoundly that he wasn't up to the task? That Klaus always had, and always would, come out on top? What did he have to give him any hope whatsoever of snatching victory from the jaws of this most resounding defeat?

_Well, actually…_

He had the dagger. He had one of Klaus's witches, one who was obviously both skilled and trusted enough that he had chosen her for this particular assignment. Through her, and her surveillance of Damon, he had the location of the burial ground. He would have knowledge of Klaus's movements, of his arrival in town. He had Jules on a nice, tight leash somewhere; he needed only to call her to heel.

_And he would, by all that was holy or unholy, have the doppelganger – one way or another_.

Elijah nodded slowly and extended his hand, clasping Andie's in his own.

"Deal."


	11. Chapter 11

**I had hoped to keep on a daily roll, but most of what I wrote yesterday ended up on the cutting room floor, so to speak. **

**To Elena Winchester: I tried to work in a flashback for you, but it just didn't fit. It's now a deleted scene. If you want, I can clean it up and PM it to you, since you've been so cool about reviewing and all. :-)**

**And finally: These two! Jeez! I feel like they're always **_**this close **_**to some truly epic hate-sex; the only thing that stops me from actually writing it is the fact that I don't think I can possibly out-epic Bill and Lorena on **_**True Blood**_**. [And as an attestation to Nina Dobrev's acting ability in distinguishing between Elena and Katherine: I love the idea of Elijah & Kat; any thought of Elijah with Elena completely squicks me out.]**

_**Any**_**way...**

**

* * *

**

Elijah rejoined Andie in the study after slipping outside to make some phone calls. Being dead and _incommunicado_ for a fortnight was proving to be a considerable inconvenience. He was fortunate that Andie had thought to pocket his cell phone before his body was dragged down to the basement. Now that he had people scurrying to perform certain errands for him, such as procuring another car to replace the one now sitting at the bottom of a ravine – _and we will be discussing that at length_, _Damon_ – he felt the crisis of confidence waning somewhat. Perhaps the situation could still be saved. He just needed to regroup.

Andie looked up from her notebook as he seated himself. "We should leave," she said. "Figure out where to hide you, since Klaus is on his way."

"No."

"There are a bunch of cabins on the lake that – wait, what do you mean, 'no?' You can't be seen, Elijah. As it is, I'm going to have to put a glamour on the room downstairs so that no one will realize you're not in it anymore."

"I have no intention of hiding behind a glamour, or anything else."

Andie stared at him as though he were being particularly dimwitted. "Did you miss the part where I said Klaus is coming to town?" She started singing, "You know, 'You better not shout, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why –'"

He cut her off with a look. "We have what, a week, now, until the full moon? If I'm back in the equation then it throws him off his game and divides his attention from any other last-minute preparations he may be making." Let Klaus be the one scrambling to keep up for a change.

Elijah walked to the fireplace, running his hands over the stone mantle. "Can you gather them all here tonight?"

"Them?"

"The Salvatores, Elena, and whoever else needs to be included?"

"Uh, probably, but..."

"Good. I may as well address them all at once, have everyone on the same page."

Andie slid her notebook back into her bag and studied him for a few moments. "Can I make a suggestion?"

"By all means."

"This... 'Master of the Universe' thing that you've been doing? You might wanna take that down a notch. Or ten."

"Excuse me?"

"You know, the thing where you're all, 'I'm a big bad Original Vampire. Do as I say and don't ask questions, or else?'"

"I prefer to think of it as maintaining control of the situation," he said stiffly.

"Yeah... how's that workin' for ya?" She sat forward in her chair. "News flash: This isn't the Middle Ages; it's 21st century America. There are no serfs anymore. They're not going to jump to do your bidding. People expect information like they expect air to breathe. If you want them to work with you – and please note I said '_with_ you,' not '_for_ you,' – then you need to collaborate, not dictate."

Several replies sprang to mind, but he bit them off.

"Not your strong suit, I know." She brightened. "But we can work on it! So, what are you going to do in the meantime?"

"I believe you said that Katerina is staying here." He smiled, and could feel it going feral around the edges. "I'll wait for her."

Whatever Andie saw on his face made her slide out of the chair, on the side away from him. "Ooookay then! Well, I'm gonna go." She put her bag over her shoulder and headed toward the foyer. "I'll try and get everyone here later." She stopped short as she glanced out the glass doors toward the back of the hallway, seeing again the mass devastation outside. "A little landscaping, some mulch, maybe they won't notice. Bye!"

Elijah paced the library as he listened to her drive off, and considered her words regarding the approach to take with the Salvatores and their little band. Though it galled him enormously to admit it, she had a certain point. Autocracy had gotten him nowhere thus far. Perhaps a more collaborative spirit... The mere thought of it gave him a tremendous urge to go back outside and do a little more damage. With a snarl, he went upstairs to seek out the room currently being occupied by Katerina.

It wasn't difficult to find. Five hundred years had done nothing to improve upon her tidiness, or lack thereof. The bed was unmade, with blankets sloughing off the sides and pillows knocked askew. Clothes littered every conceivable piece of furniture and spilled over onto the floor. There was a trail of wet towels leading out of the bathroom, the state of which Elijah didn't even want to contemplate. Baubles, beads, make-up and hair accessories ran riot over the bureau, which sported a scorch mark in the wood next to whatever hair-styling contraption lay there. He accidentally kicked a discarded shoe and sent it flying under the bed, where its mate already cowered, as though hoping to escape notice.

The room was a sharp contrast to Elena's.

_And that's quite enough of making comparisons between the two_, he warned himself firmly. The exercise was futile, and had caused him more than enough trouble already. No more. No more comparisons, _period._

He heard her from the time she turned off of the road and into the driveway. He thought about meeting her downstairs, as she walked into the house, but some perversity of nature made him choose to surprise her here, in her room, instead. Hearing her footsteps on the stairs, Elijah removed a robe from the armchair to sit, uncovering when he did so a black, lacy, and barely-there... something. He wondered which brother she had sought to entice with it, and whether she had succeeded. Pinching the edge of it between thumb and forefinger, he was about to toss it onto a pile of clothing already on the floor when she walked through the door.

She looked ready to rush the intruder, until she registered who it was. Recognition pulled her up short.

Elijah smiled at her, and instead of tossing the garment as he had intended, he held it up like an exhibit. "Special occasion?"

Katerina crossed her arms and shrugged. "If I'd known you were coming, I could have modeled it for you. All those long, cold nights in prison... a girl gets lonely."

"That's right… you aren't where I left you, are you?"

"Ditto."

Elijah brushed a couple of remaining garments out of the chair and seated himself. "I must admit, I'm surprised to find you still in town, what with Klaus on the way. I would have thought you'd be across the state line about ten minutes after you were freed." He tilted his head to the side, looking up at her. "Why _are_ you still here?"

"The same reason you are: I want Klaus dead."

"My, aren't we brave all of a sudden."

She crossed to the window and looked out. "I'm tired of running. This is the best opportunity to take him out."

He snorted. "You're as likely to drop to your knees and service him as you are to try and kill him, if you see a greater advantage in it."

She whirled back around, her eyes narrowed to slits. "Not after what he did to my family."

_Ah, yes. That._ "You expect me to believe that, 500 years after the fact, you're ready to take up arms and oppose Klaus now, to avenge a family who I'm guessing, knowing what I know now, ran you out in disgrace?"

"Believe what you want. It changes nothing." When he didn't answer, she crossed her arms and leaned against the windowsill. "We have a common goal here, Elijah."

"Hmm… I don't recall it being a particular goal of mine to be killed with the dagger." He bent in the chair, giving her a little mock bow. "Nicely done, by the way."

"Don't look at me. I was in the tomb, remember?" A flicker of triumph ghosted through her eyes, belying her denial.

"Mm-hmm. And the fact that it turned up with John Gilbert, descendant of the John Gilbert whom you just happened to know when you were here in the 1860's, who just happened to have researched the dagger and the lore behind it… purely coincidental, I'm sure."

A little smirk betrayed her before she got up to pace the room. "Maybe we should work together."

"And I would trust you because…?"

"Because, as I said, we both want the same thing."

He leaned back and crossed his legs, making an expansive gesture with his arms. "Since I've been told I should be more _collaborative_, let's assume that I'm foolish enough to believe you. What's your plan?"

She started another circuit, window to closet, closet to the other window. "There's full moon next week."

"I'm aware of that."

"Klaus will try to break the curse. Although…" She made a show of pausing in front of one of the windows and putting her chin in her hands, a puzzled expression on her face.

Elijah rolled his eyes, but opted to play along. "Although?"

The chair he inhabited sat kitty-corner to the bed, which was a large, four-poster affair. Katerina came over and leaned against the post facing him, just a few feet away. "The so-called 'curse' keeps the werewolves pretty handily in check; meanwhile, Klaus isn't really even inconvenienced by it, nor is anyone else with the werewithal to have a witch make a daylight charm for them. Have you ever considered it a little curious that Klaus has gone to _so_ much trouble to try and break it?"

He had, and on more than one occasion. But Klaus was one who, once he took something into his head, would stop at nothing until he got what he wanted. "Continue."

"I don't think the breaking of the curse is the point, at least not for the reason we've always assumed. Something else must happen when it's broken, something that's to his advantage. I think it goes back to the ritual that set the curse. _And_," she said, sauntering over to perch on the arm of the chair, "I think he was the one who set that whole thing up in the first place."

Elijah considered it for a millisecond, discarded it. "No. Why set up a curse he would then spend a thousand years trying to break? It makes no sense, even for him."

"I didn't say he intended to set the _curse_, just that he set up the _ritual_. I think whoever performed it was supposed to do something else, but double-crossed him." She leaned an elbow on the back of the chair, and shifted onto one hip, so she was draped along the arm, her head a little higher than his. "But then, maybe you'd know better than me. You _were_ there, after all, weren't you?"

He _had_ been there, outside the circle, kept out by a mystical barrier that wouldn't allow a vampire to pass, no matter how frantically he had tried. As had Klaus.

Klaus, who was already there when Elijah and the others had learned of what was happening.

Klaus, who had spent a great deal of time and coin with the caravan of gypsies, from whose ranks came the witch who had stood in the circle and cast the spell. Klaus, who had murdered every last one of those gypsies the night after the curse took effect. Klaus, who had purchased a very similar moonstone to the one binding the curse from some Silesian merchant on one of their northern sojourns.

Klaus, who had told him that Irina had gone to assist the midwife with the birthing of a child, and would be late in returning home that evening.

"No." He shook his head, denying the possibility. "No. You're reaching too far."

Katerina tilted her head, studying his face. Her hand slid down from where it draped across her thigh, and trailed down his chest. "Am I?"

Elijah smacked her hand away, annoyed. "Do you even stop to consider it anymore, or is 'whore' simply your natural default?"

She removed her hand, but didn't remove herself from the chair. "Fine, you hate me, I _get_ it," she said, rolling her eyes. "That doesn't make me wrong, though. About Klaus." When he said nothing, she swung around and perched sideways on his knee, wearing an expression of mock primness. "Would the theory be more palatable to you if I said it all 'sweet and sincere,' like Elena? Or… what was her name… Irina?"

He looked up at her with a small, cold smile. Taking her wrist, he tugged so she was off-balance, then turned her so she was facing him. He grasped her hips and pulled her closer, and ran his hand up her back. Katerina leaned her face down toward his, a small, triumphant smile on her face – a smile that died just as quickly as it had flared to life when he dug his fingers into the back of her neck, deep into the flesh, and snapped her spinal cord.

Her body went limp, as though she were a marionette whose strings had been cut. Her eyes went wild around the edges, and her mouth moved, but he had severed the cord high enough that she could draw no breath to speak. Lifting her with him, Elijah stood and deposited her on the bed, straightening her limbs out. "The only reason that wasn't your heart coming out of your chest," he told her, "is because you may still, somehow, prove to be of use to me."

Tears coursed down her cheeks from eyes that glared up at him. He sat down on the bed next to her and wiped them away in a parody of tenderness. "At your age, without blood between now and then, it will take seven to eight hours for your spinal cord to heal itself back together. I suggest you use that time to consider just how useful you might be."

Standing, Elijah drew a blanket over her, for what purpose he didn't know. He paused on his way out the door, and turned back, drumming his fingers on the door casing. "I like this collaborating," he said, and closed the door.

Now, he had only to deal with the _other_ Petrova doppelganger.


	12. Chapter 12

**I'm... not really sure what to say. Elijah's having a rough day, I think, this first day back to life. Hopefully he's gotten the emo out of his system now and is ready to resume being the BAMF we all know and love.**

**

* * *

**Elijah was reading by the fireplace when he heard two vehicles pull into the driveway. He glanced at the grandfather clock: it was only around 3:30 p.m., a little earlier than he had expected Andie to start gathering people. He closed the book and sat quietly, waiting. Three car doors opened and closed, and footsteps crunched on the gravel of the walkway.

"All right, little brother, what's the big school emergency?" he heard Damon ask. "Not enough streamers for the pep rally? Deciding the theme for prom?"

"Elena had a little surprise in her locker today."

"Ooh, a rose. Scary!" The front door opened and closed. Elijah heard the clink of keys being tossed into a ceramic dish on the occasional table out there. "Now, a ficus – _that_ would have been truly terrifying."

"Could you be serious for five minutes, Damon?" Elena said.

"So you have a secret admirer, Elena. Look, there's no point getting all paranoid about every little – " Damon cut off abruptly, his eyebrows climbing into his hairline, as he came through the archway and saw Elijah sitting there. "Oh, you have _got_ to be _kidding_ me!" He looked not so much scared as disgustedly incredulous. Elijah almost sympathized with him. Almost.

Elena and Stefan rushed around the corner, Elena's eyes going wide as she brought her hand to her mouth. Stefan pushed her behind him, a look of consternation on his face. Or maybe constipation; it was hard to tell.

"Let me guess," Elijah said, standing and sliding his hands into his pockets. "A single white rose, with one thorn featured prominently near the flower? Klaus's signature." He smirked when no one said anything. "Hello, Elena."

Damon stepped to the fore, putting himself between Elijah and the other two. "Let me guess: Katherine?" He turned and speared Stefan with a glare. "I told you the bitch couldn't be trusted."

Elijah's smirk widened a little, considering Katherine's current state as she lay upstairs, mute. "No. We'll get to that later." He approached the group, seeing Damon gather himself for a strike as he drew closer. "Think it through," he warned, his voice pitched low. He flicked his glance over at Elena. "May I see it? The rose?"

Stefan put his arm out to bar Elena as she moved to step around him, and reached over with the other hand to pluck the rose out of her fingers. He passed it over to Elijah.

Elijah examined the flower. Signature Klaus, all right. "Was there a note?" he asked.

"Klaus's 'signature' is a white rose? _Really_?" Damon looked over at Stefan. "This is the Big Bad we're all quivering over? LaAAAame."

Elena shook her head, ignoring Damon. "No note. Just that."

"There will be with the next one. Probably in or on your car, the porch of your house. He likes to ramp these things up gradually for maximum effect."

"Great. Something to look forward to," Damon said, dismissing the topic. He clapped his hands together, voice filled with faux enthusiasm. "So, who wants to discuss the elephant in the room? Or, the Original, as the case may be." Damon held his hand up to indicate himself.

Elena pushed Stefan's arm away and stepped around him. "I want to talk to Elijah. Alone."

"No." Stefan shook his head, adamant, at the same time Damon said, "_That's_ not gonna happen!"

"Guys. We handle things _my_ way, remember? You promised."

Damon crossed his arms and bent down so his face was close to Elena's. "Not when your way involves you running off – again! – to get yourself killed."

"Damon's right, Elena. We're not leaving you alone with him."

She ducked around Damon and pressed her hands to Stefan's chest, whether to placate or to press him back, Elijah wasn't certain. "If he wants to kill us right now, Stefan, we'll all be dead. It's not like we can do anything to stop him. I want to talk to him." Elena turned around to face Elijah.

Damon stepped in front of her again when she started forward. "Elena, I swear to God, I'll – "

"Damon." Stefan shook his head at his brother. "She's right. There's nothing we can do."

"So we're supposed to just let her waltz off with him? Screw that!" Damon hissed.

"It's my decision, Damon. You don't get to make it for me." Elena pushed her way around him, took another few steps toward Elijah, her arms pulling in across her body in an unconsciously defensive position. She tilted her head in the direction of the hallway leading to the kitchen. Elijah held his hand out in an 'after you' gesture. Elena ducked her head down a little as she moved past him. Elijah gave one last warning look at the Salvatore brothers before turning and following her.

Elena stopped in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter, arms still crossed in front of her. Elijah raised an eyebrow. "I assume you wanted only the illusion of privacy?"

"Huh?" He pointed to his ear. "Oh. Right." She shook her head at herself as his meaning sunk in. "Um…"

"Shall we take a walk?"

Elena glanced back toward the hallway, and sighed. "Yeah." She headed out the back door.

Elijah listened to the heated whispers between the brothers for a moment to assure himself that they didn't in fact plan to follow, then joined her outside. Elena started down a path that led through neglected gardens, walking slowly, eyes downcast, as though lost in thought. They passed an old stone bench, moss covered and stained with age, a shallow crack running down the middle. Beyond it, the path narrowed and meandered around a copse of fir trees, skirting the boundary between field and woods.

Dead, brown leaves were piled thick here; the crunch of them underfoot sounded extra loud in the silence that grew increasingly charged between them. Elena broke it at last, her voice calm and measured. "You're probably waiting for me to tell you I'm sorry, for what I did." She looked up and met his eyes as they walked. "I'm not."

Elijah wasn't entirely certain what to say to that. It wasn't what he had expected as her opening salvo. "Honesty. How refreshing. And brave, all things considered. Should I be frisking you for weapons, now?" he asked, a ghost of amusement flickering over his features.

She ignored the attempt at humor. "I know we had a deal, and that I broke it. You said you'd protect the people that I love, and you did. I know that, too." She picked up a pine cone as she walked, peeling pieces off as she went. "Although, I never actually said I wouldn't do _you_ any harm, just that I'd stop trying to get _myself_ killed."

"You're playing word games with me?" he asked, incredulous, and just a little bit impressed.

Elena slanted a glance at him, eyebrows raised. "You would know."

Elijah gave a tiny shrug. "All right, I'll concede the point."

Elena discarded what was left of the pine cone and brushed her fingers on her jeans. "I'm not stupid, Elijah. I knew I wasn't included in the promise of protection. I thought it was enough that my friends and family would be safe; maybe it _should_ have been enough. They were just _so_ angry when they realized, and they kept telling me to fight, and they wouldn't let it go, and…" She took a deep breath, let it out in a rush. "And I didn't want to die."

They walked in silence some more, until they came to an old stone well. Elijah walked to the edge and peered over, but could see nothing but darkness. He found a smallish stone near the base and dropped it in. He counted five or six seconds before he heard a distant splash at the bottom.

Elena turned back-to the well and put her hands on it, pulling herself up to sit on the edge. "It's like this big, awful, cosmic joke. Only it's not funny." She looked down at her fingers while she spoke. "Some witch performs a ritual hundreds of years ago to put a curse on vampires and werewolves, but leaves some kind of crazy, back-door loophole by having copies of a dead girl pop up from time to time? And because of that, I don't get to be a person. I'm just this... this _tool_, to be used. And the people close to me, they die, because of _me_." She tucked her hair behind her ear, in a gesture reminiscent of her aunt. "I thought, if I made the deal with you, that I could stop it; then I thought maybe I could stop it if I fought, too, and then I wouldn't have to die either." Elijah saw a tear drop onto her jeans, and she wiped her hand across her cheek impatiently. "But people are still dying. And it's still because of me." She looked over at him, clearly miserable. "Do you know about… do you know what happened with the Martins?"

He nodded. _She feels guilty,_ he realized suddenly.

"No one wanted that to happen. It shouldn't have happened." Elena kicked the heel of her foot back against the stone. "It's my fault, because of what I did. They wanted to bring you back."

If it had been Katerina before him, he would have taken it all for an act to garner his mercy, and not given it another moment's thought. Elijah had once thought Elena different, had wanted to believe it, but he'd been burned by that before – when she had suckered him in with the vervain grenade, when she'd driven the dagger through his heart. But he couldn't deny that she had a certain selflessness, a compassion, a basic… decency that was nothing like Katerina and everything like Irina. The one, he had never wanted anything to do with. The other, he needed to let go of. _No more comparisons_, he had said. But if he couldn't weigh the two extremes to see where they balanced on the scale, then how on earth was he supposed to judge her?

_As Elena. On her own terms, as her own person. Just Elena._

A breeze blew up, swirling dead leaves around them and sending up a mournful howl through the trees. Elena shivered against it. Elijah realized that she had come outside without her coat, having shed that when she'd entered the house. He slipped his own jacket off, and draped it across her shoulders. With the miniscule amount of blood he'd taken when he woke, he had no borrowed warmth to give her, but it would hold the wind at bay, at least. She pulled it around her, surprised by the gesture.

"Guilt is a burden." He leaned back against the stone, beside her, close but not touching. "I brought Jonas here, convinced him to bring Luka with him, even though he didn't want to. I wanted him to get close to Bonnie Bennett, to you." Elijah looked up at her, caught her eyes. "You don't bear this particular burden alone, Elena. We both have a share."

Elena studied his face, with eyes that seemed so much older than her few short years. A panorama of emotions moved across her expressive features, settling finally at a sad sort of acceptance. She acknowledged his admission with a nod, and looked away. "All of this… It won't stop, will it? Not until I'm dead."

Elijah pushed away from the well and tilted his head, gesturing her to walk with him. _Collaboration._ "What if I told you that we needn't perform the sacrifice, just lure Klaus in by making him think that we're going to?"

Elena fell into step with him, frowning. "Bonnie said that you needed Klaus weakened, and that the only way to do that was to let him complete the sacrifice."

"That seemed the most obvious, most expedient course to take. But Jonas and I had a theory that if we found a place of power – "

She nodded. "The burial ground."

"Then a witch should be able to channel that power and use it either to weaken Klaus or to empower someone to strike against him."

Elena stopped. "Wait. You and Dr. Martin were working on that?

"Yes."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I wasn't certain it would work. Now that the dagger has turned up, we have two advantages I hadn't previously taken into account."

"But…" She made a frustrated gesture. "If you had _told_ me…"

Elijah stood silent, letting the unspoken words fester between them: _then none of this would have happened. And those who were dead would still be alive._

Elena blew out a breath. "You really don't communicate well."

"So I'm told," he said wrily.

They headed back along the way they had come. Elijah snagged a couple of milkweed pods as he went by, splitting the papery skin to release the delicate white seeds; the breeze carried them into the trees, to haunt the woods with the other ghosts. A twig snapped somewhere, further into the treeline. Elijah turned and caught the white flash of a doe's tail as she darted away at their approach.

"What about the curse?" Elena asked at length. "Will it still be intact, as long as there's no sacrifice?"

"Presumably, so long as it remains bound to the moonstone."

"What if the moonstone were destroyed? Would the curse stay in force, or would it be broken along with the stone?"

"I don't know. I was outside the circle. I saw so little of the spell that set it in motion. The question is better left to the witches to figure out."

"You were there? When the curse was cast?"

"Yes."

She thought that through for a moment. "So, if you were there… Did you know her? The first Petrova?"

"Yes."

She glanced up at him as they walked, clearly intrigued by the notion. "What was she like?"

_Strong. Beautiful. Compassionate. Brave. _

_Mine._

"Unfortunate," he said tersely. "Come. Damon and Stefan will have themselves worked into a frenzy."

Elena hustled to keep up as he picked up the pace, the better to discourage further conversation along that meme. From a distance, he could hear other vehicles slowing as they approached the property. It seemed Andie was good to her word. He wondered what Damon would make of this impromptu house meeting they had called – in _his_ house.

When they came to the bench they had passed earlier, Elena stopped. "Elijah?"

He halted, impatient to return to the house and get this meeting, collaboration, whatever Andie wanted to call it over with so that there might eventually be an end to this interminable day. "What?"

Despite his obvious impatience, she took a few moments, considering her words carefully. "I don't want to die. Whatever they think, I don't have some kind of suicidal death wish or anything." She sank down onto the bench, digging her thumbnail into the lichen to worry it away from the stone. "If this doesn't work, though, or if it all goes wrong… if it comes down to me or to them – "

He made no comparisons. She was just Elena. But she was tearing his heart out, a piece at a time, all the same. "It won't come to that."

"But if it does – "

_Rip. _"Elena – "

"_Please_. I don't want anyone I love to die because of me, because they're trying to save me."

_Rip. _"_Elena_ – "

"_If_ it comes to that, Elijah, promise me. Give me your word."

_Rip_. Could he? Could he give his word to let her die, to kill her himself if everything went to hell? There she sat, just a handful of years old, looking up at him with those dark eyes, and talking of death. It was absurd; it was obscene. But those eyes were clear, and calm, and they held the full knowledge of what they asked.

Elijah closed his own eyes and nodded. "I give you my word," he murmured.

He turned to go, but she stood and laid her hand on his arm to forestall him. It was the first time she had touched him willingly. Well, except for when she had killed him. She couldn't know that she was doing it all over again, right now. "Thank you," she said.

He nodded again, not quite trusting himself to speak. He turned for the house again and pushed on, before she could undo him completely. A small, vicious voice inside cursed him for making the colossal mistake of caring, about her, about any of this.

Elena kept pace with him, a couple of steps behind until they rounded the bend and came back into sight of the mansion. Stefan and Damon were standing on the terrace, eyes trained like lasers on them as they came into view. Alaric had joined them.

Elena drew even with him and peeled his jacket off, handing it back to him. "So," she said, putting on her game face. "What happens now?"

He took the jacket, and answered in kind. "Now, we go kill Klaus."

She smiled at him, a genuine smile, and that was a first too. "Just like that?"

He returned the smile, and gave the only appropriate response: "Just like that."

He held back, letting Elena go ahead of him to placate the Salvatores, who looked just short of foaming at the mouth by this point. Alaric followed the trio in, casting a troubled glance back his way as he disappeared inside. Elijah slipped into the jacket, now warmed by her body.

It wasn't until he felt its weight, there in the inner pocket, that he realized he had given her the jacket with the dagger still inside.


	13. Chapter 13

**PART THIRTEEN**

**0_0**

**Oh my #$%ing **_**GOD**_**, you guys. Writing this scene was pure **_**hell**_**. I started out all "I hope this kicks ass!" and ended at "Gee, I hope it doesn't totally SUCK ass." The hardest part is being able to see the scene completely – facial expressions, hearing the line delivery – and not being able to quite describe that. You may have to fill in with your imagination to hear how the actors would read the lines. **

**Another difficulty is with the Curse. As "explained" on the show, it makes no damn sense whatsoever. Consequently, warning: full-scale fanwankery ahead.**

**Damn. I need a drink. And some chocolate. And maybe some therapeutic re-viewing of all the Elijah scenes…**

**

* * *

**

When Elijah let himself in the back door, he could hear the heated discussion taking place in the next room.

"This is bullshit, Elena!"

"We're trying this my way. Whether anyone likes it or not, we all need to work together if we're going to have any chance against Klaus."

"We can at least hear him out, Damon," Stefan said, his tone going reasonable, in direct proportion to Damon's outrage.

"First Katherine, and now you want to trust Elijah? Yes, Stefan. What could _possibly_ go wrong?"

"Speaking of Katerina," Elijah said from the doorway, "She will need a little care and feeding before joining us in conversation." All three turned to look at him, various stages of puzzlement on their faces.

"Uh, why, exactly?" Damon asked, one eyebrow raised.

"I snapped her spine earlier."

Damon gave him a surprised and approving look, much like when he'd been ripping out werewolf hearts. "Nice!"

"Without feeding, it will be a few hours yet before she's mobile. I hate to have to repeat myself," he said, in a bored, off-hand way. "I assume you have a supply somewhere?"

"I've got it." Stefan flashed his brother a look of consternation, then headed for the basement door. Elena watched him go, her expression unreadable. _Interesting, _he thought.

Any further conversation was forestalled by a perfunctory knock on the door, followed by voices in the foyer. The three of them moved into the big living room, where Alaric had just been joined by three youngsters: Elena's brother Jeremy, Bonnie Bennett, and a young, blonde vampire by the name of Caroline Forbes, whom Elijah hadn't met yet. The first two froze when they saw Elijah. Jeremy moved a step ahead of the Bennett girl, who was starting to look terrified. Elijah realized he was glaring at her and looked away.

The blonde looked from them to Damon and Elena, a finger pointing at Elijah. "Wasn't he...?"

"He got over it," Elena non-explained.

"Hey, is someone throwing me a surprise party?" Damon asked, looking around at everyone. "Because I'm surprised. Why is everyone here?"

Bonnie looked puzzled. "You sent a message saying to meet you here."

"No, I didn't."

The three of them looked at one another in confusion. "Actually," Alaric broke in, "I got the same message. I assumed you had found something you wanted to share."

Just then, the front door opened again, and Andie came through carrying four large pizzas and a bag containing soda, chips, plates and whatnot. "Good, looks like everyone is here. Little help!" she called.

Alaric shot Damon a 'what the hell?' look, which was answered by a "no freaking clue!' look. Alaric stepped forward to take the pizzas.

Damon went over and took the bag from her, setting it on the floor. "Andie! I didn't know you were coming over," he said, with false cheer, which he dropped immediately. "Why are you here?"

Andie gave him a peck on the cheek and took off her coat. "I called a meeting."

Damon looked at her like she'd sprouted tits on her forehead. Elijah saw him try and catch her eyes to compel her as he grabbed her arm. "Why are you _here_?"

"I just told you." Andie pulled her arm free and carried the bag in to set beside the pizzas. "Better eat up, guys. It's going to be a long night." She opened each of the boxes to display the topping options. When she glanced up and noticed Damon's look of irritated confusion, she rolled her eyes and sighed. "'Cliff's Notes' version?" She began ticking each point off on her fingers. "Witch, spy for Klaus, defected, gave Elijah a daggerectomy, big planning pow-wow, then we go kick Klaus's ass. All caught up now?"

Everyone stopped what they were doing and gaped. The blonde vampire tilted her head to the side. "So… if you're a witch, then you can't be compelled, right?" she asked.

With a snarl, Damon leapt at Andie at vamp-speed, only to draw up short a few inches away from her, yelling and clutching at his head as he doubled over in pain. Andie smoothed a hand over his hair. "Not tonight, sweetie. You have a headache." With that, she moved away to let him collect himself, and gestured toward the food. "Dig in, everyone."

* * *

Reasonably assured that Andie could handle herself with regard to Damon, Elijah retreated to the library while they ate. Food wasn't an option at this point; the blood he'd taken upon reviving had been the barest minimum to get him going. He toyed with the idea of helping himself to the blood cache, foul as it was, but rejected the idea. He could wait a few hours yet, and stop for a drink when he left.

Edgy, he paced the room, giving each shelf only a cursory glance before moving on to the next, fidgeting with knick-knacks tucked here and there amongst the old books. Removing himself from the living room had allowed the others the illusion that he was unaware of their conversation. From the gist of some of those discussions, it was clear that he would have his work cut out for him if this ragtag bunch of clashing agendas were to coalesce into a cohesive unit, focused on one common goal.

It was not by accident that Elijah had become Klaus's right hand through the centuries. General to Klaus's king, he had demonstrated a marked talent for strategy and for choosing the right people to put in any given situation, with a couple of notable exceptions; Trevor sprang immediately to mind. But though the planning and execution of battle strategies and schemes had been his bailiwick, it had always been Klaus who had fired the men's spirits and imagination, who had rallied the troops and pointed all of their heads in the right direction to begin with. Klaus had that electric charisma that made him the natural and de facto leader. It was power, and it was very personal, having naught to do with any vampiric abilities and everything to do with the sheer force of his personality. Lacking that, Elijah needed to find some other way to harness the people in the other room and get them moving in step.

Elijah looked up as Damon sulked into the room, pulling up short when he realized it was already occupied. The discovery didn't appear to improve his mood at all. "Girlfriend trouble?" Elijah asked, innocently.

"Yeah. She's a real 'witch'," he shot back. Opening the liquor cabinet, he removed a decanter of something, whiskey judging by the scent. He seemed to debate the use of a tumbler, then opted to drink straight from the bottle. Elijah couldn't say he blamed him.

"So, do you use an accountant, or should I send the bill for my new car directly to you?"

Damon held his arms out in a 'bring it' gesture, the decanter gripped in one hand. "Absolutely! Send it. I'll be sure to file it appropriately." He tapped his foot against the small trash can placed discreetly next to the cabinet. "Cost of doing business. If you can't pay, don't play." He raised the decanter in a mock salute and took another long drink.

"You know, Damon," he said, running his fingers idly over the banister as he paced, "You have potential. It would be a shame to see it quashed prematurely because you don't know when to stop playing the inveterate smart-ass."

"Who's playing?" he asked, his smile cocky. "Is that a threat?"

"Merely an observation. Assuming that we're both still alive, we should explore this topic further, after… Well, after."

Damon snorted. "You've got the wrong brother, man. The "Good One" is in the other room. I'm the screw-up."

Elijah leaned back against one of the bookcases, crossing his arms and his ankles, and studied the younger vampire. "Yes, the two of you seem to have an inordinate amount of energy invested in playing those roles," he said at length. "It makes one wonder what you might accomplish if you stepped out of them." He heard stirring and the sounds of dishes being collected in the other room. "I guess it's time." He stepped out of the library, leaving Damon looking perplexed and suspicious. And thoughtful.

* * *

By the time everyone who was so inclined had finished eating, Katerina and Stefan had made their way downstairs, the former looking just a bit unsteady but otherwise none the worse for wear. She met Elijah's smile with a glare, but wisely remained silent, settling herself into one of the overstuffed chairs. Damon followed him in and joined Stefan and Elena on one of the couches. Elena's brother, the Bennett witch, and the blonde sat on the other. Alaric and Andie had pulled in a couple of leather chairs from another room in the house.

Someone, probably Andie, had set up a white board on an easel in front of the fireplace, complete with eraser and markers. He took a moment to appreciate the absurdity of it. What was he to do, create a flowchart of actions they might take, culminating in a pictograph of a dagger stabbing a fanged stick-person?

Nevertheless, he took center stage and looked everyone into silence. "I think we all know why we're here," he began. "But to summarize, Klaus, the first and most powerful of the Originals, is on his way to Mystic Falls, if he's not here already. He knows about the doppelganger and will try to sacrifice her to break the Sun and Moon curse."

"That Mayan curse that makes werewolves turn at the full moon and keeps vampires out of the sun?" the blonde asked.

"Only the stupid ones," Damon scoffed.

Elijah shook his head. "I don't know how the notion that the curse was of Mayan origin came into being. Someone clearly mistranslated something along the way. Someone with an exceedingly poor grasp on geography. Anyhow, since we all share a common desire to destroy Klaus, it would seem that we should stop working at cross purposes and..." he glanced over at Andie, who gave him an encouraging look. "Collaborate."

Jeremy sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Look, not to be rude, but I just want my sister to be safe. I don't really care about this Klaus guy."

"You should," Andie interjected. "Because if he has his way, no one is going to be safe."

"You mean if he breaks the curse?" Bonnie asked.

"That would make it worse, yes, but he's doing enough damage as it is even with the curse in place," Elijah answered.

"What do you mean?" Stefan asked.

Andie answered. "The stock market? New Orleans? Haiti? New Zealand? Japan?"

"Wait, what? Those were natural disasters. Well, not the stock market, but the other stuff," Caroline said.

"'Natural' in that they involved elements of nature, but 'nature' got a little helping hand, courtesy of the witches Klaus has chained to his service," Elijah followed up.

"You're saying a witch can cause a hurricane, or an earthquake? Is that even possible?" Bonnie looked doubtful.

"Not one witch by him or herself, no. But lots of witches, working in tandem? Yeah. It's more than possible, it's what happened," Andie confirmed. "I know a lot of the people involved. None of them did it willingly."

"Then why are they working for Klaus? Why were you?" Damon asked. "For that matter, why should we trust anything you say now? How do we know you're not still spying for him?"

"Klaus can always find leverage to use against people. Don't do what he says, someone you love dies. How creatively depends on his particular mood that day." Andie leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "Trust me, none of us wanted to be there."

"Klaus would like nothing better than to plunge the world back into the Dark Ages," Elijah warned. "When I say that there is more at stake here than Elena's safety, I mean that everything is at stake."

Stefan cleared his throat. "You Originals seem pretty hard to kill. Is it even possible to kill Klaus?"

Caroline raised her hand momentarily. As though remembering suddenly that she wasn't in school, she dropped it with a little blush. "Um, this 'Original' thing. What exactly does that mean? Were you, like, born a vampire or something?"

Damon shot her a perturbed look. "Your mouth is moving, sound is coming out... Not good." He turned back to Elijah. "Ignore Vampire Barbie. We all do."

Elena smacked him across the arm. "Don't be an ass."

"No, it's a valid question," Alaric said, nodding toward Caroline, who shot Damon a "so there!" look.

"One which would take some time to answer in full," Elijah warned.

Damon shrugged, looking around the room. "Anyone have a hot date?"

Andie looked over at him. "Not you."

Rather than waste time arguing about it, Elijah plowed ahead. "Short version, the Originals became vampires through a magical ritual. They weren't turned by other vampires."

"Why?" Caroline asked, her tone implying that she couldn't imagine anyone wanting to be a vampire.

Elijah sighed. "How well do you know your world history?" He asked, then glanced over at Alaric. "I'll surmise not very well. Okay." He took a moment to figure out how much detail to go into. "During the latter part of the 6th and through the 7th centuries, Britain and northern Europe were plagued by warfare, both amongst ourselves and at the hands of Viking marauders. For – "

Andie cut in with a stage-whisper, gesturing toward the whiteboard. "Ooh, you should… there are markers there. Why don't you…" She trailed off as Elijah stared at her, nonplused. "You know what? Nevermind. Just…" She rolled her hands in a 'please continue' gesture.

Elijah cleared his throat. "For the first half of the 7th century, the Viking attacks came mostly in the form of individual raids, where they would strike and withdraw. But in 860, they mounted a full-scale invasion into England. By 865 they had an enlarged army that became entrenched, rather than withdrawing after battle. In 867 they toppled the kingdom of Northumbria. East Anglia fell to them in 869, and by 877 we had lost Mercia as well. Those of us who survived and escaped enslavement were pushed into the Kingdom of Wessex. That's where I met Klaus."

Caroline piped up. "You're English? I wondered, but the accent's kind of off – "

Damon glowered at her. "_Stop talking_."

Elijah ignored the exchange. "Christianity had more of less taken hold in England well before then, but there were still underground pockets of the older religions and practices. Though a nobleman in King Alfred's court, Klaus belonged to one of those sects. And when the Norse army turned toward Wessex, he proposed the wild idea of transforming some of our soldiers into what I suppose you would call super-soldiers, through some kind of quasi-religious, magical ritual. We dismissed the idea as madness. Until he went away, and came back transformed.

"The change was unfathomable. His strength and speed had been multiplied by a hundred-fold. Heightened senses… the ability to bend the mind of others to his will… he was the ultimate warrior. After that demonstration, some of us were persuaded to undergo the same ritual."

"Is that why he is stronger than you? Because he was first?" Caroline asked, then shrugged at Damon when he gave her The Look. "What?"

"No, not precisely. He was the only one to undergo the ritual the first time. The second time, there were twelve of us. The ritual was the same, and produced the same output of power, but this time it was siphoned into twelve people rather than just one. So though we all received the same abilities, each of us on our own had only about a twelfth of the power and strength that Klaus had." Damon and Stefan exchanged a look that Elijah translated roughly as _'fuck!_'

"If it made you so powerful, why didn't more people do the same thing?" Jeremy asked.

"When we were no longer in the heat of battle, when we returned home to our families, it started to become clear just what we had become. Bloodlust was understandable during battle, natural even. But it didn't subside once we were back home. If anything, it grew worse. We became as much of a scourge on our own people as the raiders had been. The very people whom we had fought to protect were terrified of us, and rightly so. Many of us killed members of our own families; some killed their entire families in a fit of bloodlust." He pushed certain memories that rose unbidden back down, into the past, where they belonged. "Convinced that we had been possessed by demons, they tried to destroy us. We fled. Not to preserve our own lives. To preserve theirs."

"So you left and started making other vampires?" Bonnie asked.

"That was an accidental discovery. One of our ranks was bitten by his victim as he fought. With the ingestion of the blood, his wounds quickly healed. We realized that we could heal as well as kill. Then one of those who had been healed died through some misfortune, but awoke, thirsting for blood. Once he fed that thirst, he turned. Some started turning their own little cadres of vampires; the new ones weren't as strong, and they could be killed by the methods you're all familiar with, unlike us. But they were useful, all the same."

"So… what you're saying is, we _can't_ kill Klaus. He can't die." Stefan pointed out, boiling it down and bringing the discussion back on point.

"Jonas and I theorized that it might be possible to kill him if he were to be weakened first. The thought was to strike during the course of the sacrifice, as that would weaken him, but with the power available at the burial ground, we may be able to draw enough power for a magical assault that will do the same. If we can achieve such a weakened state, it's possible that he can be killed via the same methods that would kill a normal vampire."

"But you don't know that for sure," Alaric pointed out.

"No," Elijah conceded, reluctantly. "Not for sure."

"If we have the dagger, why wait and take a chance on a ritual gathering? Why not just attack him before then, take him out?" Damon asked.

Elijah shook his head. "The dagger will kill any vampire who uses it, and no human is going to be able to attack and kill him with it. It won't work."

"It worked on _you_. Twice. In one day," Alaric said, looking just a little bit smug.

Elijah narrowed his eyes at him. "Yes, an interesting point, 'Ric.' Perhaps we should get together for a _drink_ afterward and discuss it."

"What about using the dagger during the ritual?" Elena asked.

"Best to keep it as a back-up plan," he decided. "Any human who tries to get close enough to wield it will be in very grave danger."

"I can do it," Jeremy volunteered.

"No!" Elena shook her head vehemently.

"I've got the ring. If I fail the first time, I get a do-over."

"No, Jeremy. I don't want you anywhere near there if we go through with this."

"I'm not some little kid, Elena! You don't need to protect me."

"Jer – "

"Wait. What are you talking about?" Elijah asked, not following.

Jeremy held up his hand. "This ring. It protects whoever is wearing it from dying because of something supernatural." He stopped and thought a moment. "Could... Could Elena wear it, to keep from being sacrificed?"

Elijah thought a moment. "Doubtful. Klaus would no doubt remove any jewelry if given the opportunity, on the off chance that it might interfere with his success."

"So_ I_ go in wearing it then."

"Forget it, Jeremy!"

"Elena, his suggestion has some merit. It's worth considering." Elijah looked the boy over, taking his measure. He was strong and fit, at least. There wasn't much time, but he could be taught some basic moves…

"No. No, no, no! I don't want anyone else dragged into this! He's just a kid." Elena crossed her arms, stubborn.

"I'm less than two years younger than you!"

"You know," Elijah interjected, "this notion of prolonged adolescence is rather a modern conceit. At his age, I was already a seasoned warrior."

"I'm assuming we don't want to actually break the curse, right? That's not on the table?" Bonnie broke in, changing the subject.

"No."

"But if we don't break it, won't someone else just try? Won't they keep coming for Elena?" Stefan asked. "What if we can destroy the moonstone? That way no one else can break the curse either."

"Andie?" Elijah turned the floor over to her.

"This kind of magic isn't really my forte, but basically, there are two ways it could go, depending on how the original ritual was constructed when it set the curse in place. The first possibility is that when the stone that binds the curse is destroyed, the curse is destroyed along with it, since there is nothing left to bind it. The other possibility is that by destroying the stone, the curse becomes permanent."

"How do we figure out which?" Caroline asked.

"I'm not sure we really can." Andie looked at Elijah. "How much do you know about the ritual?"

"Not enough."

Katerina leaned forward in her chair, entering the conversation for the first time. "There may be even more to it than that. _Some_ of us have a theory that Klaus was the one that set the ritual in motion."

"A theory for which you have no substantiation," Elijah said shortly, wondering where exactly he had lost all semblance of control over this meeting.

"I'm working on that. _Any_way, if that's the case, then there has to be something else that happens if the curse is broken, something we're not seeing. The curse isn't a problem for Klaus, nor for most of us with half a clue. There has to be some other reason he wants to break it, something that dates back to what happened, or what _didn't_ happen, the first time." She looked from Bonnie to Andie. "Witches. So tricky."

"Why do you think there's more to it?" Elena asked, frowning.

Katerina shrugged. "It's the only thing that makes sense."

"That's pure conjecture," Elijah snapped, impatient to get on with it.

"That _you_ don't want to entertain because of Irina Petrova. Do you really think Klaus would hesitate to use her because of her connection to you? We're talking about _Klaus_. He may have engineered her use just _because_ she was yours."

Elena's eyes snapped up to meet his with a start, as the implication of what Katerina had just said set in. Katerina noticed. "What, you didn't know?" she asked Elena, with a wicked sidelong glance at Elijah, daring him to repeat his earlier handling of her in front of the whole group. "We're copies of his dead girlfriend. You more than me, apparently." She put on a fake scandalized look. "She wasn't all slutty like me."

"_Jenna Jameson_ isn't all slutty like you," Damon cut in.

"I didn't hear you complaining when I was being slutty with you," she purred at him.

Caroline raised her eyebrows, twirling a piece of her hair around her finger. "Well _this _took an awkward turn."

"_Enough_." Elijah didn't raise his voice, but the one word cracked through the room like a whip, silencing the discussion. "There was no logical reason to use Irina."

"Actually," a voice drifted in from the foyer, and another woman entered the room. He searched his memory… Isobel Fleming, if he recalled correctly from photos he'd seen. "There _was_ a reason. Irina Petrova was Klaus's..." she counted out on her fingers as she spoke. "Great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter."


	14. Chapter 14

**PART FOURTEEN.** **Or, "How Elijah Got His Groove Back." I can't believe there is only ONE WEEK left until the next new episode. I need to wrap this up before then. Eek!**

* * *

"Is... that even possible?" Elena asked, into the silence following Isobel's revelation.

Isobel pulled a tablet-style computer out of the bag she carried. "It is if all of these connections are correct." She tapped some keys on the pad and then held it up. The words weren't legible from that distance, but Elijah could see that it was a family tree. He held his hand out for it; Isobel passed it to Elena, who passed it to him.

"It's about time you showed up," Katerina told Isobel.

Isobel shrugged diffidently. "You wanted a 'show and tell,' didn't you? It took a little while to put it together." She looked over at Alaric who, after glaring at her for a moment, got up and stalked out of the room.

"Wait. I thought vampires couldn't... you know, have kids. Is it different with Originals?" Caroline asked.

"Klaus had a family before he turned," Elijah said absently, scrolling down through the lengthy chart.

Bonnie shifted positions on the couch, drawing her legs up under her. "He wasn't one of the ones who killed their families, then?"

"They had fled by the time we returned from Edington. They must have been frightened when he returned the first time." Elijah focused on a particular section of the tree and enlarged it. "Right here – you have two names in this block. That would have been Klaus's great-grandson. Was there some question as whether he was actually the sire of these children?"

Isobel came and looked over his shoulder. "No, it's the same person. There was an adoption." She pointed to the square above it. "He died during the passage through the Balkans – what would have been known as _Haemon Mons_ then. The next spring, she married this man," she pointed to another box, off to the side with a dotted border. "That's where the Petrova name came from."

Andie stretched in her chair to peer over the edge of the pad. "Does the Mormon Church know about you? 'Cause you are seriously kicking 's ass right now."

"What was that you were saying about 'substantiation,' Elijah?" Katerina asked, coming to stand beside Isobel and glance over the tablet.

Elijah handed the computer back to Isobel and turned away from the two women, toward the fireplace. "This genealogy spans 1100 years. It's quite a stretch to think you can be accurate going back that far."

"It helps when you have access to resources most genealogists don't." She fiddled with the tablet some more, then held it out to Elijah again. This time there was an extensive list of resources she had used, including some that Elijah recognized from their inclusion in his own database, as well as from sorting through Slater's research.

"So, if this is true," Damon said, looking at Katerina with a huge cat-that-ate-the-canary grin, "Then that means that you..." he stopped, chuckled. "That _you_ and your great, great, great, great – well, your _really_ great grandfather – "

Stefan cut him off. "I think we get the point, Damon."

"Or maybe he wasn't really _that great_, if you know what I mean, and I think you do." Damon waggled his eyebrows at Katerina in a lewd manner. "You did run away from him, after all." Katerina rolled her eyes and ignored him.

Caroline draped her legs up over the arm of the couch. "I think I speak for all of us when I say: _eww_!"

"Did... did Irina have children?" Elena asked, peering at Elijah hesitantly.

Elijah looked up from the tablet and shook his head. "No. She had a younger sister and brother, however. They both married and had children. According to this, Katerina came down from Grigor, which is logical as her family retained the Petrova name." Elijah passed it back to Isobel again and went to pour himself a drink, more to give himself something to do with his hands and to take a moment than because he really wanted it.

Lengthy bibliography notwithstanding, the chances of a family tree charting correctly out to that many generations was highly improbable. He was afraid, though, that it was all beginning to make a sick sort of sense. If Katerina's supposition was based off of that genealogy, then her theory was perhaps not as far-fetched as he had wanted to believe it was. If the blood connection truly did exist between Klaus and Irina, then her use as the ritual sacrifice was likely_ not_ mere coincidence. And if that was the case, it meant that the man whom he had once called 'friend,' the man whom he had served for the better part of a millennium, had been responsible for the death of the woman he had loved. He dug forefinger and thumb into his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. He was starting to wish he were back in the basement with the dagger in his heart.

"You lost me," Bonnie said, shaking her head. "How does this person being related to Klaus mean that he had anything to do with the curse spell?"

Andie tucked one foot under her. "Well... if we want to go with the theory that he knew of the relation, and that he set her up to be used... maybe there was an object, or some sort of energy he wanted bound to him?"

"You can do that?"

"Sure. You can bind anything to anything if you have the right ingredients. And the skill to do it. As I said, not my area of expertise. I wouldn't... hey!" Andie snapped her fingers. "That's why he wanted Greta Martin! That_ is _her area."

Elijah frowned. "Jonas's as well."

"Makes sense. These things tend to follow family lines."

Jeremy leaned back and oh-so-casually draped his arm across Bonnie's shoulders. "Wait, witches can only do certain types of magic?"

"There is usually one area that we're stronger in, that comes naturally to us," Andie confirmed.

"Why the sacrifice, though?" Bonnie shifted again so she was sitting cross-legged, grabbing a throw pillow to put on her lap and dislodging Jeremy's arm. "Why couldn't he use his own blood?"

"Life-Death dichotomy."

"The whose-in-the-what now?" Damon asked.

"Magic and nature are all about balance and dualities," Andie explained. "In magical terms, Klaus's blood is 'dead.' It isn't a natural life-force that animates him, it's a form of death magic. To bind him to something, you would need to balance that out with life energy. It's the same reason that the doppelganger has to be human, alive. When Katherine vamped herself, she took herself out of the running." She turned to glance at Katerina. "Nice move, by the way."

"_Thank_ you. I'm glad _someone_ appreciates it."

Caroline got up and grabbed one of the bags of chips. "If this spell-thingy was supposed to be all about Klaus, how did the werewolves get mixed up in it? I mean, where'd _that_ come from?" she asked, between mouthfuls. "Seems kinda random."

Everyone turned to look at Elijah. _As if I have all the answers._ "I have no idea. If we're accepting the theory that Klaus was gathering the ritual for another purpose, the werewolf element could have been a last minute addition on the part of the spellcasters when they decided to change the plan, seeing an opportunity to curse both sets."

Since the discussion was showing a frustrating tendency to yield more questions than it did answers, the group en masse followed Caroline's lead in taking a break, getting up to grab snacks, refill beverages, and make bathroom trips. Damon left the room; a few moments later, Elijah could hear him and Alaric talking in low voices across the hall, in the library. He took advantage of the lull in activity to check his text messages from those whom he had sent on errands earlier in the day, looking for one text in particular. Satisfied, he pocketed his phone again.

Every now and then, when he looked up, he'd catch Elena looking at him, her expression fluctuating between speculation, trepidation, and compassion, so it came as no surprise when she took advantage of Stefan's momentary attention elsewhere to slip over to him. Not quite sure what to say when she got there, she fidgeted with her glass of soda for a few moments before saying, quietly, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

No need for him to ask to what she referred. "Why would you have?"

"I know. It's just... Did – "

"Elena."

"Hmm?"

"We will not be having this conversation."

"Right. Okay." To the relief of both of them, Bonnie motioned Elena over on some pretext or other. Shortly thereafter, Damon returned, Alaric in tow. The latter resumed his seat, pointedly ignoring Isobel. Elijah gave himself a mental head-slap as it finally occurred to him the relation between the two. No wonder Alaric and John Gilbert had loathed one another. He had feared it was perhaps over Jenna, though Jenna certainly didn't seem to have any use for Gilbert either.

Snacks and beverages seen to, everyone started drifting back to their seats. It was getting late, and they were starting to look a little ragged around the edges. Elena had her head on Stefan's shoulder. Caroline eschewed the sofa in favor of the floor, stretching out on her side with her head propped up on one hand. Bonnie half slumped against Jeremy. Even Andie was winding down. He could relate. Feeding was soon going to become an imperative.

"What about the other Originals?" Stefan asked into the silence. "Where are they? Would any of them help against Klaus? I know you said that none of you are as powerful as him, but if all twelve of you worked together..."

Elijah shook his head. "Most broke with Klaus long ago. They're scattered all over the world."

"But you must know where they are, some of them anyway."

"Even if I do, they won't come. They've washed their hands of Klaus. They won't want to get pulled back in."

"Besides," Isobel put in, sitting down on the floor in front of Katerina's chair. "There aren't twelve anymore. Three are dead."

"I thought we had already established that they can't be killed." Alaric spoke up at last, sending a pointed look Elijah's way.

"The one white oak, Ric," Isobel told him. "How do you think it was discovered that it could kill an Original?"

"It doesn't; not permanently, anyway."

"The ash doesn't, no. But when the tree was _alive_, a stake from it would."

Andie nodded in agreement. "Life-death."

Elena rubbed a hand over her eyes, stifling a yawn. "I thought that was for binding."

Bonnie sat upright, suddenly alert. "Same principle applies across the board," she said. "The tree was part of the ritual that turned the Originals; as such it bound the death magic that animates them." She stared intently at Elijah as she spoke, her affect strange, her voice low and odd.

Jeremy looked at her, concerned. "Bonnie? You okay?"

"Take that same life energy and thrust it into the death magic, that magic is disrupted."

Elena sat up straight, looking worried. "Bon?"

"The death magic, Elijah. Disrupt the magic that animates him, and you can kill him."

"Okay, now you're starting to freak us out," Caroline said, sitting up.

Elijah walked over to stand in front of the girl, eyes narrowed as he looked down at her. He grasped her shoulders. "Jonas?"

"What?" Elena got off the couch and came over to stand beside Elijah. "Bonnie? What's happening? Are you okay?"

Elijah held up a hand to silence her. "Is that you?"

Bonnie reached up and grabbed Elijah's hands firmly. "If he starts the ritual, he absorbs life magic from it; that's gonna disrupt his own death magic and weaken him. Strike him _then_, and you can kill him, Elijah." Her grip on his hand tightened until her knuckles turned white. "_Do you understand?"_

He squeezed the girl's shoulders. "Yes. I understand."

Bonnie gave him a brisk nod; a moment later, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed against Jeremy.

"Bonnie!" Jeremy patted her face, trying to wake her, then whirled on Elijah angrily. "What the hell?"

"I think we just figured out what her specialty is," Andie said. "She's a channeler."

Bonnie stirred and sat up, putting a hand to the side of her head. Looking around, she noticed everyone staring at her. "What happened?" she asked. "Did I fall asleep?"

Jeremy pulled her into a hug. She hugged him back awkwardly, looking a little embarrassed. "What's going on?"

"You don't remember?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "No."

Andie rolled her eyes and stepped over, sitting on Bonnie's other side. "You were channeling," she said, matter-of-factly. "Have you ever done that before?"

"She has," Elena said. "Her ancestor, Emily."

"Wait, Emily came back?" Bonnie asked, pushing away from Jeremy and sitting upright.

"Uh, no," Elena said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "You were, um, channeling Jonas Martin."

Caroline winced up at Bonnie. "Aaawk-ward..."

Bonnie absorbed that news. "Okay... Well, that's a little freaky."

Caroline nodded. "Ahuh, yeah. _Way_ freaky."

Damon sighed and stood up, stretching. "So, basically, to sum up: we can't just sneak up and kill Klaus; we have to make a show out of this ritual thing that involves some arcane, life-and-death magical vampire hoo-doo bullshit that I'm not even going to try and recap; and finally, we can't recruit the other Originals to help, because they're overcome with _ennui_ or something, and would only add up to three-quarters of Klaus's power anyway."

Elijah shook his head. "No, if we all combined we would equal him," he said off-hand. "When the others were killed whatever power they held dispersed amongst the rest of the twelve. But the point is moot, they won't – "

The realization hit him so hard it almost literally bowled him over. He turned and put his hands

on the mantle for support, breathing deeply as he stared into the fire, seeing all of the implications start to coalesce into a coherent picture. Klaus's decision to burn the oak to the ground, after staking Gerhard with a piece of it and realizing that Gerhard's power had transferred to the others. Klaus's injunction against one Original killing another. Klaus's insistence that they remain in the village where he had discovered Irina. The amount of time he had spent with the witches and their caravan. The vampire, the werewolf, the sacrifice of Klaus's living blood – and a ritual constructed to bind it all...

_To him! _

"The devious, megalomaniacal son of a bitch," he breathed.

"Is he having an episode?" Caroline whispered to someone.

"Something you want to share with the class?" Andie asked.

Elijah straightened, shrugging off his recent doubts as his accustomed air of command settled across his shoulders, warm and comfortable as an old cloak. True, he may not have been the fiery, charismatic leader that Klaus was; but he _had,_ after all, been the architect of most of Klaus's victories. How many times had it been he, behind closed doors, explaining strategy to Klaus? _You don't take your troops to where the enemy is. You take them to where he's going to be. Defeat your foes not by chasing them, but by knowing what it is that they want._

Despite the ridiculous amount of power he already possessed, Klaus wanted dominion over everyone else's too. Katerina had been right; Klaus didn't give a good goddamn about breaking the curse. He just wanted the energy of the vampires and the werewolves unbound from the moonstone so that he could take it, control it, feed off of it, use it to his own twisted ends. He wanted to own it all. He turned slowly back toward the room, smiling.

_I have you, you bastard._

"Damon: Klaus cannot – _cannot_ – gain possession of the moonstone. I'll be taking it with me."

"Like I would give it to him?" Damon scoffed.

"Klaus can compel you. He can't compel _me_."

Damon looked very pleased with himself. "Even if I've been ingesting vervain?"

"Yes, even if," he confirmed, wiping the smug grin off of Damon's face with a quickness. "Go and get it." The younger vampire sat still, defiant. Elijah started gathering himself for a battle of wills. Seated near Bonnie, Andie cleared her throat softly. He glanced down her way; she lifted one eloquent eyebrow at him, and waited. He sighed inwardly, giving her an almost imperceptible nod, then consciously released the tension coiling in his muscles and his mind. "It's important, Damon," he said quietly. "Please."

Damon held for several beats, perplexed and perhaps surprised by the sudden absence of force against which to struggle. Evidently having made a decision, he slipped the moonstone from his pocket and handed it to Elijah. Reluctantly.

"Thank you." He slid the rock into his own pocket and turned back to Andie. "You have just over a week. Work with Bonnie. I know it's not your specialty, but whatever you can teach her will be useful. The more she's able to channel Jonas, the more we may benefit from his expertise."

Bonnie looked dubious; Andie reached over and grasped her hand briefly, smiling reassuringly. "It'll be fine."

"Jeremy: Meet me here tomorrow after school. We haven't time for comprehensive training, of course, but we can at least work on the basics of close-quarters, hand-to-hand combat."

"Really?" Jeremy said, enthusiastic. "Awesome!"

"Elena," Elijah said, cutting off her imminent protest. "Make certain _no one_ is invited into the house. Klaus will send you gifts, some with implicit threats, some may have _explicit_ threats. Ignore them. He'll want to mess with your mind, throw you off guard. Do not let him. Try not to move about overmuch without myself or one of the Salvatores with you."

"You should stay here," Stefan told her.

Elijah nixed that idea immediately. "No. Elena's home has a threshold. Yours does not. It would perhaps be a good idea if you were to stay with her there, however, Stefan.

"Alaric: If you'll join Jeremy and myself tomorrow, we can review your weapons cache to see what, if anything, may prove useful.

"Isobel: Since you've demonstrated a flare for it, I'd like to ask that you research the current status of the location where the transformation rituals took place. I will text you the GPS coordinates later this evening, once I work them out.

"Damon: Day after tomorrow, you and I will go and survey the burial ground and figure out our set-up. That evening, we should all meet here again to strategize for the ritual.

"I want cell numbers from everyone. Phones stay on at all times. If anything happens, even something that you feel may not be of much import at the time, you call me. Immediately. Is everyone clear?"

"No instructions for me?" Katerina said, with her usual amount of sarcasm.

"Would there be any point?" He asked, in kind.

Caroline half-raised her hand. "Um, what should I do?"

"Stay out of the way," Damon told her.

Elijah took a moment to consider her. "I have an idea. Come with Jeremy and Alaric tomorrow. We can discuss it then." The blonde looked pleased to be included. Damon rolled is eyes. Elijah surveyed the room. "Given the hour, I think we should adjourn for the evening. Andie, I assume you have pen and paper handy. Phone numbers, everyone." Then, with a nod to her, he wrote his own number on the whiteboard, making her smile.

Their information duly recorded, everyone started filing out. Alaric was first out the door, seemingly happy to get as far and as fast away from Isobel as possible. Stefan left to take Elena home; Bonnie, Jeremy and Caroline went out together; they were sharing a ride. Damon slunk off into the library. Andie looked on the verge of following him, but changed her mind.

"Thank you," Elijah told her. "For your suggestion," he clarified when she looked at him blankly. "It was productive, opening the floor up to the group, as it were." Something Klaus had certainly never done.

She acknowledged the thanks with a nod. "Do you need a ride somewhere? I can drop you off."

Elijah shook his head. "I have a vehicle waiting outside for me. It was delivered earlier."

She looked impressed. "Well, _that's_ handy. Guess it's good to be the king."

"No," he said, smiling as he helped her into her coat. "Just the general."

"Um, okay…"

He bid her goodnight and would have followed her out the door, but an idea struck him. He hesitated in the doorway, thought about it, discarded it. Thought about it again. Wavered…

Turning back around, he poked his head into the library. "Damon. I'm going out for a drink. Join me?"

Damon held up the half-full tumbler he had in his hand. "Plenty of booze here. Help yourself."

"That… wasn't what I meant."

One eyebrow shot up, joined by the other a moment later as he caught Elijah's meaning. "Oh. Uh…"

Elijah turned, motioning for him to follow. "Come. There's something I want to show you."

Damon set his glass down and stood. "Hey, no offense, but you're not exactly my type. I mean, I know we're 'growing close' and all, but…"

He rolled his eyes as he waited for Damon to pass him, heading out the front door. "Not _that_ close."


	15. Chapter 15

**Damn, Elijah IS one BAMF! As for the end of the scene? Yeah, it's a little silly. Guilty as charged. But with so much **_**sturm und drang**_**in the last several sections, I felt like a little bit of levity was warranted. Plus, it's April Fool's Day. ***_**puts on a helmet in preparation for the rotten tomatoes being thrown***_

* * *

**PART FIFTEEN**

Jeremy and Alaric pulled into the Salvatore driveway as Caroline was driving out, her assignment reviewed and accepted. Jeremy opened the door almost before the car stopped rolling, obviously eager for the upcoming lesson. Elijah suspected that enthusiasm would diminish quickly enough when the boy discovered just what he was in for.

Alaric popped the tailgate and exited the vehicle, motioning to Elijah as he went around to the back of the car. Elijah joined him there as he started removing cases, boxes, a modified shotgun, and a couple of crossbows from the back of the jeep. "Wooden bullets?" Elijah asked, examining the shotgun.

"Yup."

"Useless." He took one of the crossbows out. "Where are the projectiles for this?"

Alaric pulled out a bandolier of stakes. "These are notched on the bottom for quick loading and more controlled aim."

Damon sauntered out of the house, now that Alaric had arrived, and Caroline was no longer there for him to avoid. Interesting dynamic between those two. Elijah sent himself a mental memo to have a discussion with Damon about his ersatz 'daughter' at some point.

"He's got this cool wrist thing, too," Jeremy said, pulling a wearable lock and release mechanism from one of the boxes."

"The stakes won't do much to Klaus," Elijah decided, pulling one out and looking it over. "But they may provide a momentary distraction for someone else to slip in." He set the bow back in the car and opened one of the plastic cases. Inside it were six large, glass syringes that contained a clear liquid. "Vervain, I presume?"

Alaric nodded. "There are twelve more."

Elijah removed one from the padded case and examined it. The needle was of a large gauge, to facilitate a quick injection of the vervain inside. He pressed the plunger until a drop appeared at the point of the needle. Dabbing it off, Elijah rubbed the drop between thumb and forefinger, where it hissed briefly against his flesh. In light of what they were going to be doing, Elijah had eschewed his normal slacks, shirt and jacket combo in favor of loose-fitting knit pants and a plain black T-shirt, so with his arm already bared, he jammed the needle into it and pressed the plunger down hard.

"Holy shit! – " "Whoa! – " Alaric and Jeremy both yelled at the same time, and jumped back as the skin on Elijah's arm bubbled up and split, blood literally boiling out of the erupted flesh, hissing and steaming as it rolled down his arm and dripped off of his fingers.

"Damn!" Damon breathed, his eyebrows climbing his forehead as he watched with a sick sort of horrified fascination.

The only reaction Elijah showed was a slight wincing around the eyes as the vervain ran its course; the blood gradually simmered down, scores gouged in the skin from where it had run down his arm closing and healing before their eyes. The whole display was over in under ninety seconds. "Adequate as a distraction," he told them matter-of-factly. "I assume that was a tincture, not an essential oil?"

Alaric shook himself. "Ah, yeah. That..." He pulled another of the syringes out of the case, looking it over. "These usually work as a sedative for a vampire when injected. They don't... do _that_."

"I'm not a regular vampire."

"So that same thing would happen to Klaus if he took one of these?" Jeremy asked, looking fairly impressed.

"Yes. If you can obtain or produce some essential oil within the next week and swap this out, the stronger concentration will enhance the effect. The same for those vervain grenades, which I assume came from you." Elijah rooted around in the rest of the boxes. "What about a tranquilizer gun? One that would accommodate a large amount of liquid, like something you would use to bring down big game?"

Alaric shook his head. "No, but I could get one."

"You're thinking vervain tranquilizer darts?" Damon asked.

"Not exactly, but we'll get to that tomorrow. Pick one up, today if you can." Elijah left off going through the trunk and turned toward Jeremy. "Are you ready for your lesson?"

"Yeah, totally!"

"All right." He walked over to his car, stripping his shirt off as he went, and took a towel out of it, as well as a knife that was roughly the same size and weight as the dagger. Motioning to Jeremy to follow, he headed around the house, past the part of the landscape he had torn up, until he got to a smooth, open area. "I'm going to assume that you've never in fact stabbed someone?"

"Uh, no." Jeremy took the knife that Elijah held out to him.

"Well then, before we get fancy about doing this on the fly, I think you better know what that feels like." He tapped his chest. "Stab me. Aim for the heart."

"Wait, what? Just... stab you? Like right now?"

"Mm-hm."

His voice went up half an octave. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Damon and Alaric came around the house and leaned up against an old stone retaining wall, apparently settling in to watch the show.

"Okay..." Jeremy adjusted his grip on the hilt of the knife a couple of times, took a few steps toward Elijah, retreated. "While you're just standing there?"

"Yes, Jeremy." Elijah kept his hands at his sides, waiting.

He swallowed a couple of times, then blew out his breath and nodded. "Okay." The boy took a moment to find a good grip on the knife, then raised his hand up and advanced, at little more than a walk. When he reached Elijah, he swung the knife in a downward motion, toward the general chest vicinity.

The blade penetrated only a fraction of an inch, cutting a shallow slice as it deflected off of the sternum. Releasing his grip on it, Jeremy shook his arm and flexed his fist open and closed a couple of times. Elijah bent and retrieved the knife, holding it by the bloodied blade, handle toward Jeremy. "There is a lot of bone protecting the heart," he explained. "And the stabbing motion you see in slasher films is probably the least effective move when it comes to piercing it."

"Yeah," Jeremy agreed slowly, taking the knife. "It kinda made my hand vibrate."

"If you strike bone, it will. The harder you strike, the more force will reverberate up your arm. It's actually possible to break bones in your own hand and wrist with a misplaced thrust. At the very least it will numb the nerves for a few moments."

Elijah walked over near where Alaric and Damon stood and grabbed the towel, wiping the blood off of his chest with it. He carried it back with him and tossed it on the ground a few feet away. The gash underneath had healed, no trace of it visible. "What you want to do," he advised, walking up to the boy, "Is come in from the side or from underneath the rib cage. If you come from the side," he said, running a hand along his rib cage, "then you chance hitting the ribs. Those aren't as hard or as thick as the sternum, so if you strike with enough force you may be able to shatter the rib and still get your shot in. It's more likely, though, that the blade will deflect and miss the heart.

"If, however, you come up from underneath, you build slightly less momentum on the swing, but you go through muscle and stomach, not through bone, so your aim will stay truer." He stepped back. "Try it again. Harder this time; you half-assed the first swing."

Jeremy took a deep breath and rushed him faster this time, swinging in from the side. The shot knicked his rib and bounced off. Elijah wiped the blood off with the towel and straightened. "Again."

"How many tries to you think before he hurls?" Damon asked Alaric.

"Depends. I'm betting the first time he hits an organ."

Elijah glanced at the peanut gallery, one eyebrow raised, but didn't comment. He motioned to Jeremy. "Come."

Once more Jeremy came from the side; once more he opened skin across the ribs, but pierced nothing underneath. Elijah smiled as he wiped more blood off. "Not as easy as it looks, is it?"

Jeremy huffed out a breath. "No." He was sweating freely, though he hadn't really expended that much physical effort. All things considered, Elijah was glad. He'd have been perhaps more worried if the boy _weren't_ a little dismayed at the idea of stabbing someone. But he needed to know if Jeremy had it in him. There was no point in putting him in the ritual circle if he couldn't pull the trigger when the time came.

"Again," he told him.

Looking more determined, Jeremy rushed him hard, coming from the side a third time. This shot hit true, slipping neatly between two ribs to pierce Elijah's lung. Jeremy quickly pulled the knife back out, triumph warring with apprehension as Elijah bent at the waist and coughed, spitting blood.

"Better," Elijah said roughly, coughing some more as he bent to retrieve the towel, wiping blood from his lips.

"He didn't toss 'em," Damon observed to Alaric.

"Too clean. Lung doesn't count. Wait."

Elijah tossed the towel back down. "Again."

"Seriously?" Jeremy asked. "I mean..."

"Jeremy. You won't kill me. You won't even incapacitate me, not even if you do hit my heart. Continue."

"But... doesn't it _hurt_?"

"That's irrelevant. Try it again. Come in from under the ribcage this time. Center front, right here," he said, pointing toward the spot just underneath the ribs.

Alaric leaned toward Damon. "Dude. He is _hardcore_."

Damon nodded, wincing. "Yeah. Dayum."

Jeremy swallowed thickly. "All right." Again he rushed in, this time thrusting with an upward motion, just as Elijah had said. His aim was good; the knife slit his flesh open and tore through muscle, ripping into Elijah's stomach, the tip of the blade piercing his heart. Blood and other fluids gushed out of him in a torrent, spilling hot over Jeremy's arm, onto his clothes, splashing at his feet on the ground. Jeremy let go of the knife and staggered backward as Elijah went to his knees, getting only a few steps away before bending at the waist and retching.

"You called that one right," Damon commented.

Elijah slid the knife out of his chest with a grunt and pressed a hand to the wound to keep the organs inside as he waited for everything to knit itself together, watching Jeremy continue to retch long after his stomach had emptied itself. "You may want to bring him a towel as well," he ground out, catching Damon's eye and tilting his head toward Jeremy.

"Did he bring a change of clothes?" Damon asked Alaric, as he turned toward the house.

Alaric shook his head. "I don't think so."

Damon disappeared inside the house. Once the flesh had closed, Elijah climbed back upright and cleaned himself off, then headed over to Jeremy. He had moved away a bit and was sitting cross-legged on the ground, pale and a little green around the edges. "Are you all right?" he asked him quietly.

Jeremy glanced up at him. "You're asking _me_ that?"

Elijah held his arms out, showing off a chest that was unmarred. "Good as new. I told you: you aren't going to hurt me." He reached down and gave the boy's shoulder a squeeze. "I wanted you to know what it was going to feel like if you succeeded, see how you would react. Better to find out now, under practice conditions, than when your own life is in danger. Do you want to go on?"

"I..." He swallowed, nodded. "Yeah. I guess."

Damon came back outside carrying a towel, a T-shirt, a bottle of water, and a bag of O-positive. The first three items he handed to Jeremy. The blood bag he held up questioningly. Elijah shook his head. "Not yet, at any rate." He let Jeremy clean up a little and take a few swallows of water, then led him back to the sparring ground.

"Can I make a suggestion?" Alaric asked. "He hasn't got a shot if he's approaching Klaus from the front. Wouldn't it make more sense for him to attack from behind?"

Elijah shot him a mocking smile. "Well, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"

Alaric smiled back, a little cocky. "But I _do_ get an added difficulty bonus for going through the chair and _still_ hitting the mark."

"So," Damon interjected, slinging an arm around Alaric's shoulders and turning him toward the house. "Why don't we go do some gun shopping?"

Elijah turned his attention back to Jeremy. "Why don't we ease off the bloodletting for a little bit and talk about movement?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." He looked noticeably relieved.

"Uh, Houston, we have a problem," Damon called.

Elijah turned to see what he referred to, and saw Jenna striding toward them, looking like she was ready to murder each and every one of them. "Jeremy, go get in the – Oh my God!" She broke into a run when she saw the blood staining Jeremy's shirt.

"It's okay, I'm fine. It's not mine," he explained, or tried to, as she pulled his shirt up and searched frantically for a wound.

"What the hell happened?"

"We were... um... uh..."

Having satisfied herself that Jeremy was neither bleeding out nor in imminent danger of death, she returned to looking furious. "Go get in the car."

"Aunt Jenna – "

"In the car! What part of 'stay away from the Salvatores' did you not understand?"

Alaric stepped toward them. "Jenna – "

Jenna whirled on him and held her hand up. "_You_ do not speak to me. Ever. I don't want to see you, I don't want to know you, you are dead to me." She turned back to Jeremy and pointed in the direction from whence she had come. "Move!"

Seeing Jeremy looking ready to mutiny, Elijah stepped up. "We can continue this another time, Jeremy. You should probably go."

Jeremy looked back and forth between them for a couple of beats, then sulked off around the house. Damon pulled Alaric toward the house again. "Let's go, Romeo, before you step on your dick any harder."

Jenna stood her ground, facing Elijah straight on, glaring at him. _She knows, _he realized, with more regret than he cared to admit. _I wish I had gotten a little more distracted, when there might have been a chance._ "I take it you've been brought up to speed," he asked, once Damon and Alaric had disappeared into the house.

"About the whole ancient evil vampire thing? Yeah, I got the memo. I was a little late to the office, but I got it." He wondered if she were referring to Klaus or himself. Better not to ask, probably. She looked away, her expression bitter. "Stupid Aunt Jenna. Lie to her, she'll believe anything. Like walking into a knife. Because _that's _something people just do, right? Just don't tell her the truth, whatever you do."

"I suspect they were worried for you safety."

"Oh, right! Because I was so _safe_ inviting every vampire – Jesus, there are _vampires_, for Christ sake! – in the tri-state area into my house. It was so _safe_ letting my niece and nephew _date_ vampires. It was so _safe..._ No, you know what? I'm not even gonna do this. Just... you stay away from them. From all of us." She turned to leave.

"I'm sorry, Jenna. But I can't do that."

She whirled back around. "_What_ did you say?"

"I said I can't leave them alone. I need her. Elena."

Jenna stepped in, narrowing the gap between them to mere inches, and poked a finger into his chest. "What the hell is wrong with you? Are all of you vampires perverts? She's seventeen years old. She's still in high school, for crying out loud. Go order yourself someone who's _not_ on the kiddie menu!"

"Not for _that_, Jenna. God." He turned away from her to give himself a little bit of space, and saw the T-shirt that Damon had brought out for Jeremy still sitting on the wall. He grabbed it and pulled it on. Only to look down and realize that it had words on it: _My idea involves midgets and porn_.

He stared at the shirt for a moment. Closed his eyes. Ran his hand over his face and sighed. "Well... hell."

"Then what do you _mean_ you... Okay, it is _really_ hard to take you seriously as an ancient evil vampire in that T-shirt."

Elijah met her eyes, feeling... Regretful? Sorry? Annoyed? Ridiculous? _Human?_ All of the above? His sense of humor kicked in, pulling one corner of his mouth up into a grin. Mad as she was, Jenna's lips twitched in answer at the absurdity of the situation. "If you make me laugh right now, I will stake you," she threatened.

"I'm sorry," he said, sobering. "It really isn't a laughing matter. But I do need Elena. She's the doppelganger, Jenna. I need her to lure _the_ 'ancient evil vampire' in. It's the only way to kill him. I won't let her be sacrificed – you have to trust me on that – but I need her for this to succeed."

Jenna looked at him blankly, all traces of humor fleeing. "What the hell are you talking about?"

So, apparently her education hadn't been complete. Elijah sighed deeply. "They didn't tell you _everything_, did they?"


	16. Chapter 16

**Damn. When Elijah slips back into BAMF mode, he doesn't eff around about it. *gulp*. o_0**

* * *

**PART SIXTEEN**

Elijah poured Jenna another glass of red wine. She picked it up absently and drank, staring shellshocked into the fire that crackled in the big stone fireplace. He had offered her something stronger, but she had refused, laboring as she was under the misconception that she would be driving home tonight. He had tried to convince her to ride with him, up here to the house that he had bought when he'd come to town, but distrustful, she had opted to follow him instead.

The expansive lake house sat high over the water, perched atop ledge on a promontory that jutted out into the lake. From its tall, dramatic windows, Elijah had 360-degree views of the landscape around him; habits from a thousand years as chief of security died hard. While he had no intention of remaining in Mystic Falls any longer than necessary, this house of stone and air and light had called to him, peering down at the world from the top of its lonely hill. It reminded him somewhat of his penthouse in Manhattan, but instead of the noise of the city bustling beneath him, here it was silent save for the occasional call of a bird of prey swooping down on its quarry, or the sighing of the wind through the trees. So instead of picking up a modest, easy-to-turn-over house in town, he had paid a ridiculous sum for this lakeside retreat. He couldn't say he regretted it.

Seating himself on the other end of the leather sofa, he studied Jenna's profile in the flickering light. Having quickly ascertained that she'd been informed about vampires only in the context of the Salvatores and Isobel Fleming, he had told her the rest of the story. _All_ of it. The doppelganger, Katerina, werewolves, witches, the Curse, himself... she was as up to speed as any of them at this point. She had heard it all out, indignant at first that they had kept still more from her, then with increasing concern as the dangers inherent to the situation had begun to sink in. By the time he had finished the part about Klaus and the sacrifice, she had been stunned into a shocked silence. "Are you all right?" He asked finally, breaking that silence.

Jenna took another deep swallow of wine, considering. "I don't know," she answered at last. "Up is down, down is up, and the monsters under the bed are real. And everyone knew it but me."

"Well, not everyone. But I'll concede that it must feel that way." He picked up his own wine glass, drank. "They thought they were protecting you."

She nodded slowly. "Yeah. Do you have any concept of how humiliating that is?"

He frowned. "Humiliating?"

Jenna ran her finger around the rim of her glass, circle after slow circle. In sharp contrast to her earlier outrage, her voice was quiet, subdued, eerily calm even. "My sister. My brother-in-law. My niece. My nephew. My boyfriend. My friends. Not one person in my life thought that I deserved the truth."

"I don't think it was a question of 'deserving', Jenna. They care for you."

"Mm-hm. They do." She took another sip. "You know what you 'care for,' Elijah? Plants. Pets. Children. You 'care for' those things. But you don't _respect_ them."

Jenna took her glass and crossed the room to look out the window, though with the dark outside, only the distorted view of the room behind her was visible. "My sister was twelve years older than me. Did you know that?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Mm. Miranda was one of those people that just... had everything together, you know? The perfect daughter, popular, pretty, good grades, smart... She graduated from college, married a doctor, raised kids, ran committees... She got everything right."

"It sounds like she cast a long shadow." He knew something of standing in shadows.

She nodded, turning away from the window, and wandered back over to the fireplace, staring once more into its flames. "_Me_... I was the screw-up. I said weird things, laughed at inappropriate times, ruined my good clothes just before church because Billy Moseley dared me to ride my bike down that steep hill, and the tire got caught on a tree root."

Jenna turned to face him, shrugging a little, a small, sad smile on her face. "Mom and dad never really got mad at me; they'd just pat my head, say, 'Oh, Jenna' and go about their day. What else did they expect, right? Then they died, just after I started college, and left Miranda to do the head-shaking and the eye-rolling, because God knows I was still a screw-up."

"Jenna..."

"I had no idea that Grayson and Miranda had named me as Elena and Jeremy's guardian. Not until John and I were sitting with the lawyer, and he read the will." Tears shone in her large, dark eyes; one spilled over and ran down her cheek. "I was shocked; I mean, yeah, John's a douchebag, but it never occurred to me that they would have named me as legal guardian over him. Then, about two seconds after the shock hit, the terror set in. I couldn't keep a cactus alive, and suddenly I was supposed to raise kids?

"But even with the shock, and the pants-shitting terror, there was this... _wonder_, and... and _pride_ that they would trust me – me! – with Elena and Jeremy."

Jenna set her glass on the mantle and crossed her arms in front of her, two more tears spilling over. "And what have I done with that trust? I've let my niece have overnights with her boyfriend – her _vampire_ boyfriend – although just the 'boyfriend' part of it is bad enough, really; I've stood by while my nephew smoked pot and did God knows what other drugs, because who the hell was _I_ to cast stones about it; I've had my boyfriend – who is their history teacher – stay overnight at the house, leading to the infamous Chunky Monkey incident..." She shook her head at his questioning look. "Don't ask.

"So it's no wonder they don't respect me. Why would they? Why wouldn't they think I needed to be protected? Aunt Jenna, the big screw-up."

Jenna took her glass from the mantle, finishing the wine in two big swallows. Pushing her hair out of her face, she wiped the tears from her cheeks and squared her shoulders. "That ends now," she announced.

Elijah stood and followed her as she strode through the dining room, to the foyer. "Where are you going?"

"Home."

"Jenna – "

"Home, to do what I should have been doing this whole time: be a parent. It's my job to protect them, not the other way around."

He took her hand as she reached for her purse and keys. "I understand. I _do_," he said, overriding her protest. He brought his other hand up, tilted her chin up so she faced him. "But you can't protect them, not from _this_."

"I have to try."

"This was always going to happen, Jenna. Whether your sister were still alive, whether you cracked the whip over curfews and homework, whether you knew about vampires or not. Elena is the doppelganger; this was fated to happen." He released her hand, so he could cup her face with both of his. "It's not your fault."

Her eyes welled again. "It will be if I fail them now."

Every instinct in him warning against it, he pulled her into his arms, kissing the top of her head as one hand stroked her hair. She stiffened momentarily, and he cursed himself for touching her when he good and goddamn well knew better, but then she relaxed against him, laying her head on his shoulder as her arms came up to lightly encircle his waist. "Jenna," he murmured into her hair, settling her more firmly against him when she sniffled.

_I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be doing this!_ he thought, repeatedly, even as he stroked her neck, her back; even as he kissed her hair and nuzzled his chin against her temple. She tightened her arms around him and pulled her face back a little, looking up at him with those big, dark eyes, eyes that he could – that he _would_ – drown in if he didn't pull it together and get away from her.

He might have pushed her away then, if he hadn't heard a car start up the long, long driveway to the house, and known that he had this one, single, solitary chance to taste her – the last one he would ever have before she hated him, probably forever.

Keeping his eyes on hers, closing them only at the last possible moment, he lowered his head and touched his lips to hers. The lightest of caresses, until he was sure that she wouldn't resist; then he kissed her more firmly. She returned the kiss, pressing against him as it deepened. He felt her lips part, and flicked his tongue over them, drawing a low moan from her. The sound arrowed straight to his groin, and he gripped his fingers in her hair so he could tilt her head back and access her mouth more fully, her tongue dancing with his as he slipped it inside.

She pulled back with a gasp when she heard a car door slam. "Who...?" she asked, breathing deeply, her cheeks flushed bright red.

Elijah stepped back from her, regret knifing through his chest, sharper than any blade. "You can't protect them, Jenna. Not from Klaus. But I can. I need you to let me do that. And I need you out of the way, and safe, while I do."

"What – "

Jenna turned, startled, as a man and a woman walked in. The man was tall and blond, and looked to be in his mid-twenties; the woman had dark hair and an olive complexion, and looked to be the same age. But with vampires, looks were deceiving.

"This is her, I take it?" the woman asked.

_This is she_, he thought inanely, mentally correcting her grammar. "Jenna, this is Sophia. The gentleman is Marcus. They'll see that you have whatever you need to be comfortable during your stay."

"What the hell? I'm not staying here!" She took a step toward the door, only to be blocked by Sophia. Jenna pushed her; the vampire didn't budge. "Elijah?"

Elijah gestured Marcus toward the door. "I'm sorry, Jenna. Klaus would use you against me, against Elena, if he could, and I can't have that. I'll protect them. You have my word on that."

He followed Marcus out the door, closing it firmly on her protests, confident that Sophia could keep her contained without hurting her. Marcus looked from the door to Elijah, raising an eyebrow. "Whatever she wants – food, books, entertainment... just keep her here. No phone or internet. She's not to come to any harm."

"Understood," the other man nodded. He eyed Elijah speculatively. "You're really going to throw down with Klaus?"

"That's the plan."

"And what do we do with her if you don't come back?"

He glanced toward the door, behind which she was still objecting strenuously, cursing his parentage in fairly explicit and creative terms. "Take her home. And pray that her family is alive to greet her there." Elijah turned and gripped his arm briefly. "Thank you."

"We owed you," Marcus said simply. "You called, we came."

"And I appreciate it." Elijah walked to his car as Marcus went back inside, renewing Jenna's string of invective when he didn't return as well. He gave the house a last, long look as he got in and drove away.

To town, to explain to Elena why Jenna wouldn't be coming home for the next week. And why he would be staying at their house in her place.

* * *

Elijah found a place to park and strode off down the street the next morning, annoyance clinging to him like an itchy sweater. He was annoyed with Elena, who had first berated him for telling Jenna the whole truth about what was happening; and then argued with him well into the night about sequestering her before finally – _finally_! – ceding to logic and packing her a bag, to be picked up later in the day by Sophia. He was annoyed with Jeremy, for trying to slip a cell phone into said bag, even after being warned not to, which had necessitated Elijah having to sort through the bag, item by item, to make certain no other contraband had been included. He was annoyed with Stefan, for being there even though Elijah himself had assigned him there; and for... well, basically, for being Stefan. Most of all, he was annoyed with himself, for giving in to temptation; for getting Jenna to trust him, only to betray that trust; and for skirting perilously close to have actual... _feelings_ about the entire matter.

Consequently, Elijah was in absolutely no mood whatsoever to walk into the coffee shop and discover Klaus sitting in it. But there he was, a newspaper tucked under his arm, chatting up a young woman of some indeterminate Asian lineage as she put sugar in her coffee. Only centuries of hard-won, iron control kept him from having any outward reaction. Klaus waved at him, gesturing toward an open table by the window. Elijah took his time ordering coffee, feeling the weight of Klaus's stare as he nonchalantly added some cream and sugar before finally putting the plastic cover on the cup and sauntering over to Klaus's table. The girl he had been talking with slid away as he approached. "Elijah," Klaus invited. "Join me?"

Elijah took the seat opposite, watching the girl through the window as she left the shop and walked down the street. "Did you order that to go? Because she's going."

Klaus shrugged nonchalantly. "Chinese food. It never stays with you." Klaus slid the newspaper over toward Elijah, pointing at a photo of the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. "Such a tragedy. Did you know that you can send a message to this little number here to donate to the 'humanitarian effort'? I sent mine in."

Elijah quirked a brow at him and took a sip of his coffee. "How generous."

"I'm a great humanitarian." Klaus leaned forward, winking, "My diet consists _solely_ of humans."

"Clever," Elijah said, his voice bored. "How long have you been waiting to use that line?"

"Longer than I like to admit, truthfully. I was saving it for you. No one else has any sense of humor these days." Klaus folded the paper and tasted his own coffee.

Elijah leaned back as far as the hard wooden chair would allow, crossing his legs. "So, to what do I owe this visit? Come to watch me break the curse? Since, you know, _you _couldn't."

"Yes, I heard that you've been putting together quite the list of party favors. I must say, I'm hurt: Was my invitation lost in the mail?"

"Since when have you ever needed an invitation?"

"True." Klaus sat back, mirroring Elijah's posture. "You know, though, there's one thing that's been bothering me."

"The fact that your tailor can't fit a jacket to save his life?"

"_Mee-ow_! You always were such a clothes horse. It's one thing you and Katerina had in common. How is she, by the way?"

"Wouldn't know; I haven't had her."

Klaus smirked. "Not for lack of effort on her part. But no. What's bothering me is this new little doppelganger you just magically scared up. I mean, you went to so much trouble to end the line by killing the Petrovas. And yet, just a few short years after you leave me, here you are, with a doppelganger." Klaus lost the smirk. "Someone less trusting than me might think you had been holding out the entire time."

Elijah just smiled at him over his coffee cup, and remained silent.

Klaus took a different tack. "Have you sampled the new one, at least? If it were me, I'd try both she and Katerina. Compare and contrast to the original, see whom you most prefer."

He didn't rise to the bait. "You know, I've missed conversing with someone who knows when to use 'whom.'"

Chuckling, Klaus lifted his coffee cup in salute, and smiled his charming smile. "Eh, just admit it. You miss me. It has to be lonely, out there on your own, since you flew the nest."

"Tell you what: Since you've come all this way, please do join us for the ritual next week, for old times' sake." Elijah put on a smug little smile. "I'd love for you to watch."

"Oh, I wouldn't miss it," Klaus assured him. Klaus stood, leaving the cup and newspaper on the table. "It was good to see you again, Elijah." A tall, Nordic-looking blond picked up a coffee and pastry, and headed out the door, catching Klaus's eye. Klaus smiled down at Elijah, roguish. "I think I'll try the Danish. It looks delicious." With a wiggle of his eyebrows, he left, catching up with the blond out on the street, engaging her in conversation on some pretext or another.

Elijah shook his head and heaved an inward sigh of relief. He had not only survived the opening volley with Klaus, but had actually acquitted himself quite well. Although, he thought ruefully, Klaus hadn't been off the mark altogether; sometimes he _did_ miss him. Not the unstable, increasingly paranoid Klaus of the last several decades, to be sure. But there had been a time when they _had_ been friends. Long winters spent talking in front of the fire, sorting personnel, planning campaigns... there were many times when he had been happy where he was. Now, knowing what he knew, all of those good times were retroactively tainted by the knowledge of what Klaus had done to Irina, what he wanted yet to do with all of them. Elijah wasn't certain which thing he hated Klaus for more – causing Irina's death in the first place, or rendering Elijah's whole life from that point forward nothing but a mockery.

He glanced up as someone approached his table. John Gilbert came slithering over, not waiting for an invitation before claiming Klaus's vacated chair. "Well, that looked cozy," John smarmed, drinking his coffee.

Elijah set his cup down and folded his hands on the table. "Something I can do for you, John?"

"As a matter of fact, there is." He drummed his fingers, the good ones, on the table. "I seem to have missed my invitation to the big meeting the other night."

"No, you didn't miss anything. You weren't invited."

"See, I find that curious. Especially considering that it's my daughter's life at stake."

"Your 'daughter' has no use for you, John. Nor do I."

"Well, that's a mistake, Elijah."

"I don't think so."

"Oh, trust me. It is." John drained his cup and set it aside. "Where is Isobel?"

Elijah shrugged. "Carrying out a little research project for me." It hadn't been difficult to convince Isobel to conduct her research in person, not when he'd thrown in a tidy sum of money for her troubles, and offered the use of his personal jet for the flight.

"Where?"

"I suspect she's somewhere in the British countryside by now." _Literally_ 'in' the countryside; Elijah had been certain to have someone waiting there to take her out. It was unfortunate; she was quite a gifted researcher, but she was under Katerina's thumb, and there were things that Elijah couldn't chance having discovered and reported to her, not if his plan were to succeed.

"She's not taking my calls."

"Somehow, John, I doubt that you're a stranger to the concept of women avoiding you. Your relationship with your ex, or lack of same, is not my concern."

"Actually, that's _exes_. Plural. I can't seem to reach Jenna either." John sat back, arms crossed, watching Elijah closely.

Jenna was his ex? _Jenna?_ With _this_ buffoon?

Some flicker of expression must have betrayed him. John shot him a self-satisfied smile. "Oh yeah. Jenna and I go _way_ back." Having scored a hit, he rose from the table. "I sure hope I hear from her soon. I'd hate to have to raise the alarm, get people searching for her. There's no telling what they might dig up." Smirking, he discarded his empty cup and headed into the men's restroom.

Elijah remained seated. For about 0.0003 seconds.

One moment, John was standing at the urinal. The next, Elijah was suddenly there next to him, one hand grasped firmly around John's balls.

John started, then froze with a muffled shriek as the movement brought with it a considerable amount of discomfort. His eyes went wide, his breathing shallow as he tried to keep from moving any more.

"You really aren't very clever, are you?" Elijah said, conversationally, as though he addressed him in some fancy parlor somewhere, and not in a public restroom, with the man's testicles in the palm of his hand. "You think, because you're accustomed to wheeling and dealing with the likes of Isobel Fleming, and the Salvatores, that you are of some greater significance to me than that fly on the wall over there?"

John broke out into a sweat. "Elijah – "

Elijah increased the pressure in his fingers infinitesimally; John sucked in a sharp breath. "I'm speaking," he said mildly. "I think it might be a good idea if you left town, John. You needn't worry about Jenna, nor about Jeremy and Elena. I'll be staying at the house with them. Don't go back there. Are we clear?"

John glared, but nodded.

"I can't hear you," Elijah prompted.

"Yes!" he spat.

"Well that's good. And John?"

"What?" he ground out.

"Don't ever threaten me again." He leaned in, close to his ear, and whispered, "You don't have the balls for it." With a quick squeeze, he clenched his fist and crushed the other man's scrotum, slapping a hand over John's mouth to stifle his scream. Elijah didn't release him until his cries became whimpers; then he let him slide to the floor, where he curled up in a fetal position, retching, hands pressed to his mutilated groin.

Stepping over him, Elijah went to the sink and washed his hands thoroughly, then took his time drying them before walking calmly out the door.


	17. Chapter 17

**Hell, I don't know. I think the Exposition Fairy must have left this under my pillow. Not at all where I had planned to take this next section. I am SO not going to have this story finished by the time the new episode airs on Thursday. Crap.**

* * *

**PART SEVENTEEN**

When Elijah arrived at the Salvatore House to fetch Damon for their trip to the burial ground, Katerina was waiting for him at the end of the walkway._ And isn't this just the day for unwanted encounters._ He briefly entertained the thought of driving right back down the driveway and texting Damon to meet him elsewhere, but that tactic would likely only postpone the inevitable. He parked and stepped out of the car, closing the door and leaning against it. "Katerina."

She walked toward him, ticking points off on her fingers as she approached. "Okay: You say something acerbic, I come on to you, you push me away in disgust, I come on to you harder, you 'insert-gratuitous-act-of-violence here' and call me a slut, and I go away in pain, yet still somehow pleased that I managed to goad you into reacting." She stopped in front of him, arms crossed. "There. Can we consider the preliminaries dispensed with?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. "I must admit that I would prefer to actually perform the gratuitous act of violence, but as I'm pressed for time, I suppose we can move on."

"Good. I want to talk about Klaus."

"Funny you should mention him. I saw him this morning. At the coffee shop." He smiled evilly. "He can't _wait_ to see _you_."

She pulled her arms in a little tighter. "I want in, Elijah."

"In?"

"Don't be obtuse. On the plan to kill Klaus. I want in."

"I'm sure you do. The problem, Katerina, is that I can't trust you."

"You aren't exactly on my list of Top 10 favorite people either. Still, I'd like to call for acease-fire. Let's worry about Klaus first. We can sort the rest out amongst ourselves later."

Elijah stood there, looking at her doubtfully, letting her squirm while he pretended to consider her offer. Truth be told, he had figured that, if he just ignored her, she would come to him and beg to be included. Letting her think it was her idea would make her more likely to actually do what she was told, more or less. "Perhaps..." he said tentatively, then shook his head. "No. I can't chance it."

"_Elijah_. If you are ever going to believe me about anything, believe that I want Klaus dead, just as much as you do." She rolled her eyes when he didn't answer. "Do you need me to beg?"

He eyed her curiously. "Would you?"

Katerina ground her teeth together. "If I have to."

Damon's exit from the house prevented him from testing that assertion. He shrugged. "I'll consider it."

Damon came down the walkway, juggling a stack of journals as he shrugged into a leather jacket. Katerina looked from Damon to Elijah. "I could come with you," she offered.

"No," both Elijah and Damon said in unison.

"Be smart. I _could _be of some help."

Damon paused in front of her. "You want to help?"

"Yes! What have I been telling you for the last three weeks?"

"In that case… The vacuum and duster are in the hall closet. Spruce the place up a little before everyone comes over." Damon patted the top of her head. "Go be a good little helper, now."

Katerina swatted his hand and whirled around, storming back into the house. Damon watched her go. "I don't know about you," he said, "but I don't think the house is going to be cleaned when we get back."

Elijah smirked as he climbed back into the car. "You _have_ seen her room, yes?"

"I try not to." Damon got in on the passenger side and set the journals on the back seat. Turning back around, he eyeballed the visible portion of the land to which Elijah had laid waste. "Do you have any idea what a landscaper is going to run me?" he complained.

"You can deduct it from what you owe me for the car." Elijah turned around and headed down the driveway, pausing to look at Damon when he reached end. Damon pointed to the left. "Out of curiosity," he said, pulling onto the road, "why did you allow her to stay?"

"Friends close, enemies closer…"

"No other reason?"

"Such as?"

"I had gathered that you once had feelings for her. You're not still carrying that torch?"

"For Katherine? _No_. Fool me once..." Damon gestured toward the right. "Turn down here."

Elijah did as instructed. "You heard her back there. What are your thoughts?"

"Of letting her in on the fight?" Damon seemed on the verge of some smart-ass reply or other, but stopped to consider, perhaps surprised to be asked for his opinion.

"Mm. Do you believe her?"

"I believe that she wants Klaus dead." He adjusted his seat belt, which had ridden up on the leather. "But do I trust her to stay on plan? Not so much."

"Nor I." Curious to test Damon's personnel analysis skills, Elijah pressed on. "What of the others? Break it down for me."

Damon slanted a glance over at him. "Is this a pop quiz?"

"Perhaps."

He shrugged. "Stefan's all in. Obviously. White knight, shining armor, the whole nine. Bonnie too; although, I'm not sure about this crazy-ass, channeling, ghost whisperer crap. Alaric's solid. Jeremy is a goddamn pain in the ass, but he's got the magical-ring-of-me-not-being-able-to-kill-him, so maybe once Klaus snaps his neck he'll at least trip over him or something. Vampire Barbie's probably good for talking one of Klaus's ears off. Those are the ones I'm sure of." He motioned. "Take a left up here at the crossroad, then you've got about five miles to go."

"You don't include Isobel on that list?" Elijah asked, making the turn.

"Heh. No."

"Just as well I sent her off to Europe, then."

"Good riddance. Speaking of Elena's biologicals, let's hope Uncle Daddy doesn't show up and throw a wrench into the works."

Elijah smiled. "I don't believe that will be an issue."

"Uh, you've met John, right?"

"Saw him again earlier today, in fact. I don't think we need to worry."

Damon narrowed his eyes and gave Elijah a little sideways grin. "What'd you do to him?"

"Let's just say that, biologically speaking, Elena will remain an only child."

"_Nice_." Damon stretched his legs out, shifting position again. "So I guess that just leaves our little witchy wild card. Who has already, by her own admission, betrayed Klaus. Soooo, why is it that we don't think she's going to betray us too?"

"Oh, she already has," Elijah told him nonchalantly.

"What?"

"Klaus wasn't at all surprised to see me. Which means that she either resurrected me at his behest from the get-go, or she did that on her own, but reported it to Klaus after the fact. I'm inclined to believe it was the latter."

Damon was starting to get that wild look around the eyes. "And you're... okay with this?"

"I counted on it," he assured him.

Damon clapped his hands together. "Alrighty, then. Now we just need someone to kill her. Ooh, I'll do it!" he added, raising his hand.

"No, you won't."

"Why not, exactly?"

Elijah slanted a look over at him. "There's nothing wrong with your mind, Damon. Think it through."

"Look, obviously she's still working for Klaus, which means we need to get rid of her before we go over the details of the big plan and she relays them... after which you'll change them again," Damon nodded, catching on. Then he brightened. "And _then_ we get to kill her!"

"The situation is a little more complicated than that."

"Hmm..." Damon rubbed his chin, pretending to consider. "Nope! Not seeing the complication. She betrays us, we kill her. Nice and simple." Damon gestured toward the right. "Pull off over here. There's an old access road that all but disappears once you reach the tree line. We're pretty much on foot from here."

Elijah pulled all the way off the road and parked, reaching into the back seat for a sketch pad and the camera he had stowed back there. Damon rounded up the journals and set off toward the trees. Elijah checked the batteries for the camera, then caught up to him. "Andie didn't have much of a choice," he said, continuing the conversation.

"Witches can't be compelled, remember? Can't make 'em do something they don't want to."

"Of course you can," he chided. "You just have to know where to apply the pressure."

"She was here. Klaus wasn't. She chose her side."

"Klaus has her son."

Damon stopped in his tracks. "Wait, what?"

"There's nothing wrong with your hearing, either. Andie has a son. Klaus has him squirreled away. He won't hesitate to kill the boy if she steps out of line." Elijah took advantage of the temporary halt and snapped some photos of the pathway into the grounds for reference. "You can't fault the woman for protecting her child."

"Oh, I think I can," Damon assured him. "_You_, though... I can see why you would hesitate, since that's sort of your_ thing_."

"My 'thing?'"

Damon rolled his eyes and made his little come-on-we're-all-in-on-this smirk. "You know, the caretaking, maternal thing that gets you all hot and bothered? I mean, I'm not judging or anything. Whatever does it for you, man."

No, there was nothing wrong with his mind. Nothing at all. "And upon what are you basing this conclusion?"

"Please. It's so obvious. There's little orphaned Irina, taking care of her brother and sister; then there's the child-inheriting Aunt Jenna, who – _whom – _you've been flirting with; and now there's Andie, who wants to gift-wrap you and hand you to Klaus, but apparently it's cool because she's a MILF..." He smirked. "Well, actually, I guess she'd be a MIDF. You know, Mother I DID – "

"Damon."

"Hey, it's cool. I'm just saying, you've got a thing for moms." He lost the smirk as another thought occurred to him. "You don't actually like the kids, do you?"

Elijah considered. "I enjoy them sometimes. I take it you don't?"

"They're... okay, I guess. I mean, I couldn't eat a whole one by myself or anything." He made a silly-me expression. "Wait, what am I saying? Of course I could."

Elijah just shook his head. The brush was growing thicker, crowding the path as they approached the woods. Damon hadn't been joking about it narrowing to almost nothing. He paused to snap some more photos while Damon pushed on ahead. The crunching of their footsteps sounded preternaturally loud to Elijah's ears; the woods were eerily still and silent. There was no rustling under the leaves blanketing the ground to indicate the presence of small animals. No birds called out to warn of their passage, or took startled flight from the limbs overhead. It was as though the trees themselves watched them, waiting.

Damon paused, waiting for Elijah to pull even with him again. "Did you ever have any?" he asked suddenly. "Kids? You know, before?"

Elijah slid the camera back into his pocket. "Speaking of the parent-child relationship, we should discuss Caroline."

"What about her?" Damon asked, letting the unanswered question lie.

"You appear to have been shirking your responsibilities as her sire."

Damon held his hands out. "No. Uh-uh. _That_ was Katherine's mess."

"Oh? I was given to understand that it was your blood that turned her."

"Well, yeah, I suppose, if you want to get technical about it. There was a car accident. She was bleeding internally, and they did surgery, but the doctors told her mother that it was iffy. So, yours truly here – at Bonnie's request, I might add – slipped into her room and gave her a little transfusion to heal her. And that would have been the end of the story, but Katherine overheard Bonnie talking about it, and decided to make Caroline her messenger in one of her twisted little games. Voila, Vampire Barbie."

"Damon, just because it wasn't your intent to sire someone, that doesn't absolve you of your responsibility in the matter. Unless you understand and accept that turning someone is a possible eventuality _any time_ you give them your blood, you have no business giving it." Elijah paused, motioning for Damon to do the same. "There are certain expectations in these situations. I don't think you can be held entirely at fault for not understanding that, given the circumstances – and the perpetrator – of your own siring. Still, you have responsibilities to the girl. You shouldn't be leaving her tutelage up to Stefan." Especially not to Stefan.

Damon bit his lip and gave him a sidelong glance. "Wait, is this... are we having the vampire version of 'The Talk'?" he asked, using air-quotes.

"I suppose, if you will." Elijah started walking again; Damon fell into step.

"Fine. Got it. Next time I try to keep someone from dying, I'll wear a condom. Happy?"

"What exactly is your problem with her? Yes, she can be a bit over-enthusiastic, and does talk a lot, but she isn't a stupid girl. In fact, I think she can be rather insightful, in her own way."

"Okay. Look. We used to date. And by date I mean we – "

"I take your meaning, Damon."

"Right. So, given the past, what with the 'dating' and the chomping and the compelling – which she now remembers – ...let's just say it's a bit awkward." Damon snapped a low-hanging branch out of their way, tossing it off to the side. "I suppose now you're going to lecture me on the compulsion, _Dad_?"

Elijah shrugged. "If you need to compel a woman to draw her to your bed, that's none of my affair."

Damon stopped, holding a hand palm-down in front of him. "No no no. I don't need to compel a woman to get her into bed."

He shrugged. "To keep her there, then."

"I don't need to compel them for that, either! _So_ not the point."

"If you say so." Elijah stopped suddenly, motioning for Damon to remain still, certain he'd heard something. No other sound came, though; they eventually started walking again. "You should take Caroline out hunting. Now that you know how to close a bite, that's something you could show her."

"Yeah. Because Damon the Tutor will go over so well."

"You know, you're clever, you're quick, you're perceptive… With a little work on your impulse control and self-esteem issues, you could have a very bright future."

Damon gave an incredulous little laugh. "Self-esteem issues? Uh, have you met me? I _loooooove_ me. You have me confused with Stefan again."

"Do you realize that any time someone tries to pay you a compliment, you deflect it and bring up Stefan?"

Damon broke through the trees and into a large, circular clearing, Elijah following closely on his heels. He didn't need to ask if they had arrived. Every hair on his body suddenly felt as though it were standing on end, almost like he had touched a live wire. Which he supposed he had, metaphorically speaking. Jonas had said there would be power in such a place. He hadn't been lying.

Though no breeze stirred the air, and there were no signs of the wildlife that the woods normally teemed with, Elijah could have sworn her heard muted whispers echo through the clearing, words too indistinct to make out. He walked across the yellowed grass, toward the center of the circle, where a large stone jutted out of the earth, seeing the occasional flicker in his peripheral vision, but when he turned there was nothing there. Elijah took the camera out of his pocket to take some more photos, but when he turned it on, the battery indicator, fully charged just moments before, now showed red, almost completely drained of power. He pocketed it again and turned to look at Damon; the younger vampire looked as creeped out as he felt. It was not a feeling that an almost 1200 year-old vampire was accustomed to.

"We're really gonna do this thing," Damon said grimly.

Elijah opened the sketchpad he'd brought and fished a pencil out of his coat. "Let's start figuring out how."


	18. Chapter 18

**Christ. Get a freaking room already, and stop messing with my storytelling!**

**Three more sections to go, I figure. Unfortunately, they won't be out before the new episode airs tomorrow night. I'll be out of town for dog shows the next three days, and not sure how much time or Internet access I'll have. I may get something posted from there, I may not. :-/**

* * *

Elijah capped the marker and turned to face the room, looking at each of them in turn. "Is everyone clear on his or her assignment?"

"Before the ritual, I switch Tyler for Jules, because she will have him caged for the ceremony," Caroline piped up at once. "And then I play sacrificial vampire."

"How's Tyler doing?" Elena asked. "I haven't talked to him since the lake house."

"He just came home the other night. Jules brought him back, after Elijah called her," Caroline explained. "He was really upset when I told him about the ritual and that Jules was planning on handing him over to be sacrificed for it."

"So you talked to him?"

"Yeah." Caroline shrugged. "It was kinda weird, you know? But, like, everything has been so intense, and there's been no time to breathe or anything, and I know he was upset about Mason, but I don't think he's a bad guy, he was just all like 'Grr!' because he didn't know who to trust, and I was all 'Aargh!' because hello! Friends don't let friends get shot in the head! I mean, who does that? But then he was all sorry and – "

Damon reached over and smacked her on the back of the head. Caroline gave him a 'what?' look, which Damon answered by miming zipping his lips.

Elijah cleared his throat. "Moving on?"

"I lie on the altar and bleed," Elena said ruefully.

"After which I heal her," Stefan put in, taking Elena's hand and looking at her with that cloyingly sweet expression that made Elijah want to slap it right off of his face, because _God_.

"While Bonnie and I fake a curse-breaking." Bonnie looked dubious at this assertion put forward by Andie.

"And I do stabby time on Klaus with the dagger," Jeremy finished, which made Bonnie turn the look on him.

"I still don't – "

Elijah cut Elena off with a look. "Non-negotiable, Elena. Jeremy and I have another week to practice." He pointed toward the diagram of the burial ground, indicating three points he had marked around the circle. "While you all play your parts, Damon, Alaric and I will keep whatever mayhem Klaus brings with him under control."

It was, of course, more involved than that, but Elijah wasn't going to spell it out in vivid detail in front of the group, and especially not in front of Andie. He had laid out the whole plan – well, _most_ of the plan – for Damon earlier, so that the younger vampire could carry out some of the behind-the-scenes tasks that needed to be accomplished prior to the full moon. The last detail, he would see to himself.

"Then if there are no more questions, I believe we are adjourned."

Caroline made a beeline for the pan of brownies, followed closely by Bonnie, Andie and Jeremy. Stefan and Elena slipped out of the room. Damon stood in a corner, talking in a low voice with Alaric. Katerina stalked over to Elijah, looking murderous.

"I told you I want in," she hissed, without preamble.

"Yes, so you said."

"Then what do I need to do to prove it to you?"

"You haven't a very good track record for being trustworthy, Katerina."

She whirled away from him, crossing her arms as she huffed out a breath. He could see her practically vibrating with rage, a rage that she was, so far, suppressing, probably for fear that if she gave in to it, she'd lose whatever slim chance she had of convincing him. He let her stew for a few more moments. "I did have one idea…"

Katerina turned back to face him, suspicious and hopeful at the same time. Elijah cocked his head to indicate the doorway, then leaned down toward her. "Come out to the terrace," he told her in a low voice, barely audible. "Bring Andie and Jeremy with you, but don't be obvious about it." Without waiting for a response, Elijah made his way outside.

It took a few minutes for Katerina to cull the boy and the witch away from the others and herd them outside, but eventually all three joined him. "Katerina here has requested that she play a part in next week's festivities," he told the other two, sounding dubious.

"Vampire sacrifice?" Jeremy volunteered.

"I had something a little different in mind." Elijah turned to Andie. "Glamours are more or less your specialty, yes?"

"Mm-hm."

He looked back and forth between Katerina and Jeremy. "Can you switch them?"

"Huh?" "What?" Jeremy and Katerina said together.

Andie considered for a moment. "Visually, sure. A tactile illusion would be tougher, but I can do it. As far as weight and mass go, forget it."

"A visual change should be sufficient," Elijah assured her. "The idea is to_ not_ have enough physical contact for someone to tell the difference."

"Um, why, exactly?" Jeremy asked.

Elijah spoke to Katerina. "Klaus will come after you. He will expect you to be frightened of him; moreover, he will _not _expect you to assault him. And he will most _definitely_ not expect you to stab him with the dagger. By switching your appearances, it will afford Jeremy the opportunity to get close, and will give him the needed element of surprise."

'Elijah, I'm the next oldest vampire in the group. You want me to just stand around and pretend to be Jeremy?"

"You asked for something to do, Katerina. If you think you can't handle it…"

"I'd prefer something a little more proactive."

"Did _you _want to wield the dagger?" She rolled her eyes at him. "I thought not."

"What about a double whammy?" Jeremy asked suddenly. "She hits him with a vervain dart to distract him, and I dagger him?"

Elijah considered. "That's not a bad idea, actually. We'll do the spell prior to going in?" He looked to Andie for confirmation.

"Yeah. We'll do it here before we head over."

"Then I believe we're in agreement. Happy?" he asked Katerina, as Andie and Jeremy filed back inside.

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Better than sitting on the sidelines, I suppose."

Elijah made as though to follow the other two into the house, then snapped an arm around her neck as he passed behind her. "And Katerina?" he whispered, his lips brushing along her ear, making her gasp. "If you're considering betraying me, I suggest you reconsider. Carefully."

A shiver ran down through her, and she reached back, caressing his thigh as she wriggled against him. "You're so _hot_, Elijah. I lovewhen you're aggressive," she purred. "Shall we seal the bargain? We could make it something more than a handshake…"

He started debating which 'gratuitous act of violence' to perpetrate on her this time, but something about the utter predicability of it, as pointed out by Katerina herself earlier, made him balk at the idea. That, and her admission that it pleased her to goad him into hurting her. Since he was loathe to please her, he decided to try a different tack.

Sliding his free hand down her back, he extended his fangs and grazed the back of her neck with them, leaving momentary, shallow furrows in her flesh. "Such as?" He nibbled down the side of her neck, pulling her shirt aside to continue along her shoulder. With each nip he pierced her skin, and licked each little drop of blood that he brought to the surface. He eased the iron grip he had around her to stroke down her sides, then back up the front of her, eliciting a sharp gasp when his hands skimmed over her breasts.

Katerina had stiffened when he had first grabbed and threatened her, then frozen when he'd used his teeth on her. She came to life now. Lightning fast, she eeled around so she was facing him and caught his lips with hers as she wrapped her arms around his neck. The force of her eagerness rocked him back against the stone wall that wrapped the terrace. Her tongue darted into his mouth, and he tasted more of her blood as she sliced it against his fangs. The taste of it only seemed to incite her further.

She moaned and pressed against him as she locked her lips on his. Seemingly of its own volition, his hand tangled in her hair and pulled her head back painfully, giving him access to her throat, which he nipped and sucked and kissed, almost in a frenzy before coming up to feverishly claim her mouth again.

Bunching his muscles, he pushed away from the wall until she fetched up against a wrought-iron table. The momentum bent her back and pitched him forward, so that her back hit the table. Never releasing her mouth, he rode her down, groaning deep in his throat as she locked her legs around his waist and ground against him. He vaguely registered the sound of small items tinking against the iron and raining down on the paver stones, then her nails were raking his bare chest, and his body was reminding him painfully that it hadn't done this for decades, and the warning klaxon in his head, alerting him that he had long since lost all control of the situation, was far distant and fading fast...

He would realize later, when he could think again, that he would have taken her right there and then, and damn the consequences, if the french doors onto the terrace hadn't opened at that moment, and Elena hadn't walked out.

"Oh!" She jumped, startled at finding anyone out there, then blushed furiously when the scene before her registered. "Uh... um... I'll... I'm going... To stop talking now." Elena spun around and went back into the house, closing the door firmly behind her.

Elijah peeled up off of Katerina and all but flung himself away from her. Turning and leaning his hands on the stone wall, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, willing the blood back up into his brain. A breeze against his skin made him look down, and he realized that his shirt was gaping open, the buttons torn off of it – them falling was likely the noise he had heard. Cursing himself viciously for being a fool and getting caught in his own snare, he squared his shoulders and turned around, bracing himself for the inevitable smug look of triumph on Katerina's face.

She had sat up, legs dangling over the edge of the table, panting slightly. She didn't look triumphant. She looked stunned. _Well, mission partially accomplished, anyway,_ he thought, only slightly mollified. With no witty rejoinder leaping to mind, he retired the field and strode inside, leaving her to the night air and her thoughts, whatever those might be.

Making a beeline for the jacket he had tossed across the back of a chair, he caught Damon's WTF look out of the corner of his eye. He ignored him, grabbing the car keys out of his jacket pocket after he had buttoned it as far as it would go. Spotting Jeremy, he held the keys up and motioned him over. "Tell your sister it's time to go home."

"Uh, okay..."

He didn't wait for compliance, just went out the front door and got into his car, turning it on to warm the engine while he waited for the Gilberts to come out. When they did, he thanked whatever gods would listen when Jeremy called shotgun. The boy filled the ride back to the house with talk of martial arts, fighting styles, and so forth.

Elena, in the back seat, remained silent.

* * *

School, sparring practice, and last minute preparations kept everyone busy enough over the next week that there was little time for conversation, especially of the awkward variety. Elena had gone straight to her room when they had arrived home; the next morning, they had studiously avoided any mention of the scene. That unspoken agreement had remained the status quo.

The days fell into a strange rhythm and routine. Elijah spent the time while Elena and Jeremy were in school going over preparations with Damon or Andie, touching base with out-of-town contacts about various matters, and keeping an eye around town for any more Klaus sightings. Though he occasionally saw him go in or out of one business establishment or another, neither approached the other in conversation again. It was irrelevant, at any rate. They would say – and do – everything they needed to one another when the full moon rose.

Afternoons, when school let out, Elijah spent a few hours working with Jeremy on basic hand-to-hand and knife skills. Privately, he very much doubted that Jeremy would be able to hit his target, even with the subterfuge of the glamour. It didn't matter; the boy's ring would protect him from harm. It had never been Elijah's intent that Jeremy would be the one to kill Klaus anyway.

Two days prior to the full moon, Elijah went to visit Andie. He met her outside the news station, leaning against her car in the staff parking lot. She looked surprised to see him, but if it was beyond the normal surprise of a friend dropping by unannounced, she didn't show it.

"Elijah! What are you doing here?"

"I'm just making the rounds, checking to see that everyone has things in place. How is Bonnie coming along?"

Andie fished her keys out of her purse and unlocked the driver's door so she could toss her briefcase inside. "She's doing well. She has basic spell work covered, and some not-so-basic. She'll hold."

"What about her ability to channel?"

She shrugged. "It's really not my area, so beyond general advice, like clearing her mind, centering, etc., there wasn't a whole lot I could do."

"Will I be able to access Jonas if need be?"

"I don't know, honestly."

"Then I'd better prepare some contingency plans." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his camera. "I took some photos at the burial ground when Damon and I visited. There are a couple that are... odd. If you have a few moments, perhaps we could take a look at them on your computer inside?"

"Sure." She locked her car back up and led him inside the building, past the bustling newsroom and through a large, cubicled room to a small, windowless office. "Do you have the USB cable for the camera?"

He produced it out of his pocket. She plugged it into the computer and took a few moments to download the right software. Images of the grounds started to pop up, thumbnail size, on her screen as the download progressed. When he saw the right one pop up, he pointed to it. "Can you bring that one up full screen?"

She did so. And gasped when the image filled the screen. The shot was one that he had taken when they were on the path, headed toward the clearing. A few yards in the distance, looking out of the trees, was a clearly outlined apparition. Three other photos in the series, two more from the path in and one in the clearing itself, showed similar images. "That is... really creepy," she decided, at last.

"It _felt_ creepy. And please consider the source when I say that." Elijah shifted a coffee cup over so he could perch on the edge of the desk. "How do you think this will affect the spell work?"

Andie lifted her hands, let them fall into her lap. "I just don't know. There's power there, obviously, and... echoes, but whether there is any consciousness to them... there's no telling until we're there. If anything, it may affect Bonnie's ability to focus, if there is a consciousness there that wants an outlet."

"That's what I thought, too. I'll talk with her, warn her about what to expect."

"Sorry for the non-answer," she shrugged.

"Your thoughts are running the same direction as mine, at any rate." He unhooked the camera and cord, and stood. "Thank you. For everything, not just for this. You've been a great help to me in getting everyone working together." He took her hand and raised it to his lips. "I won't forget your contributions after this is over."

It was a minute flicker, just a tiny flinch behind the eyes, but he saw it. He pretended he hadn't, busying himself with digging up his keys, and let himself out, leaving her at her desk, looking troubled.

* * *

The most critical preparation, he left for last, just the day before the ritual. He found the house easily enough, and was happy that her car was parked in the driveway so that he wouldn't have to wait. Wouldn't consider it some more. Wouldn't risk changing his mind and seeing everything unravel.

Bonnie answered the door with trepidation, seeing who it was who rang. He suspected she wouldn't invite him in. That was okay. He didn't need her to.

"For tomorrow's ritual, Bonnie: there is one more preparation that I need you to make.


	19. Chapter 19

**The best-laid plans of mice and men...**

* * *

**PART NINETEEN**

Elena rolled her sleeve back down as Elijah capped the third vial of blood he had drawn from her and placed all three in a small, padded wooden case. "So, you're putting my blood into the tranquilizer darts, and Alaric is going to shoot Klaus with them?"

Elijah nodded. "We don't want to give him the opportunity to ingest enough of your blood to be effective, but we need to put a certain amount of it into his system and bind it to his blood if we're to weaken him enough to make him vulnerable."

"Why didn't you say anything about this before?"

"This was on a need-to-know basis."

Elena nodded, her expression rueful. "Which means no one knows the whole picture. Except you."

Elijah acknowledged the comment with a small smile. "It's best to keep everyone focused on the task at hand, rather than have them worrying about what others are doing."

"Or, you don't trust everyone in the group, and this way no one can give the entire plan away, even if they want to."

Clever girl. "There _is_ that."

Unable to keep still, Elena opened the silverware drawer and closed it; straightened the magnets on the refrigerator so they were all in a straight line; and rearranged the fruit in the fruit bowl, oranges at the base, apples on top, and bananas circling around the edge. "All week I've been wishing and wishing today would just get here so it could be over with, one way or another. Now that it's here, I'm suddenly dreading it."

"You're worried we won't succeed?"

"I guess, in a way. I'm not even sure what 'success' means. Stopping Klaus isn't going to feel like much of a victory if the people that I care about are killed trying to stop him."

"That's not going to happen, Elena."

"You can't promise that," she said, meeting his gaze head-on. "Remember what you did promise me. If it comes down to it – "

"I do, and it won't." He took her hand, where it was bouncing a spoon against the counter, to still it. "If it comes down to it, I'll use the dagger on him myself, if that's what it takes to protect you." He raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it before giving it a quick squeeze and releasing it.

"I want to call Jenna," she said suddenly.

Elijah frowned. "You'll see her tomorrow." _If all goes well._

"I'd like to talk with her now. Just in case."

"Elena, if you call her with some in-case-I-die speech you're only going to drive her mad with worry – "

"Please."

He waffled for a few moments, then decided he would more quickly get Elena out of the house and keep her cooperative if he complied with the request. Taking out his phone, he dialed Marcus. "Put her on the phone," he said, without preamble, when the other vampire picked up. When he heard Jenna's tentative "Hello?" he passed it to Elena without speaking. What in the world could he have said to Jenna at this point that would be of any help in this situation?

Elijah left the kitchen to give Elena at least the illusion of privacy, hoping that she wouldn't say anything to upset Jenna _too_ much. Not that there wasn't reason to worry; there was just nothing that Jenna could do about it.

Jeremy pounded down the stairs, showing off a couple of the moves Elijah had taught him as he hit the bottom. Elijah glanced at his hand to make sure he was wearing his ring. God knew he would need it. "Are you ready for this?" he asked the boy, though privately he knew the question was rhetorical only.

"Yeah. Totally. Although... will I just look like Katherine to everyone else, or am I gonna look down and... you know, look like a chick?"

Elijah put a finger to his lips, glancing toward the kitchen where Elena was still on the phone with Jenna. "The latter, I would imagine. Try not to get too distracted," he said drily.

Jeremy grimaced. "Naw, that would be too weird. I mean, Katherine looks just like my sister, and I don't look at my sister's..." His expression grew thoughtful. "This is not a conversation normal people have."

"Well hopefully, after today, you will all have the opportunity to return to 'normal.'"

"Yeah. Normal. Except with witches and vampires and werewolves."

Elijah's lips twitched. "Oh my."

Elena joined them in the living room, passing the phone back to Elijah. "I trust you didn't alarm her overmuch?" he asked, sliding it back into his pocket.

"I think she's a little numb to alarm right now."

No doubt. He was not _at all_ looking forward to the inevitable conversation with her, post-ritual. He gathered the box and a few other items he would need. "Come. We should head to the Salvatores'. Everyone will be gathered shortly."

* * *

Everyone had arrived by the appointed time, in varying stages of nervousness. Thanks to a text message he had sent on the way over, Damon and Alaric were waiting outside when he arrived. After sending the Gilberts in ahead of him, he passed the box to Alaric. "There are three vials," he told him. "My first inclination was to tell you to put it all in one tranquilizer dart. However, it would perhaps be wiser to split it between two or three, in case you miss a shot."

"Your faith in me is overwhelming," Alaric snarked at him.

"Let us hope that your aim with a rifle is as good as that with a dagger," he told him pointedly.

Alaric gave him a smart-ass look and walked around to the passenger side of Damon's car. The two would leave early, in advance of the others, to get Alaric set up in a sniper's perch before the arrival of Klaus's cadre. Elijah turned his attention to Damon. "Are you ready?"

Damon scoffed. "I was born ready. I got this."

"Jules will already be there, in her cage. Try and show a little restraint."

"Yeah yeah, don't kill the werewolf until after the big hoorah. Got it." Damon took his keys out of his jacket pocket, tossed them up in the air and caught them a couple of times, scuffed at the gravel with his foot. "Thanks," he said at last.

"For?"

Damon rolled his eyes. "You know. Look, we don't need to make a big chick-flick moment out of it or anything." Damon got into the car and rolled the window down. "Later."

Elijah waited until Damon had started the car and put it in gear. "Damon? You're welcome."

Moving inside, he took a few minutes reviewing the plan, at least the publicly known version of it, then sent most of the group outside to load up the vehicles. Once they all got moving, Elijah went out to the terrace to wait for Andie to perform the glamour spell.

Katerina was the first to follow him out, leading to an awkward silence, given what had happened the last time they were out there alone. He waited for the inevitable taunting to start, but Katerina was unusually quiet and subdued. "What will you do?" she asked at last.

"Pardon?"

"After. When he's dead. What will you do?"

Elijah shrugged. "Much the same as I was doing before I came here, I suppose. Return home, look after various business interests..." He studied her more closely. "What will _you_ do with your future, now that you won't need to run anymore?" he asked her. As though he intended her to have a future.

She took a moment before answering. "I don't know. I always figured I would run until I couldn't anymore. Then I'd die." Katerina pulled herself up to sit on the stone wall. "I never really imagined just... having a life. I'm not sure I even know what that means."

"Probably that you should get a job," he said drily.

She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows at him. "Let's keep the discussion within the realm of possibility, shall we?"

Elijah smirked. "Very well."

"Do you ever wonder where the differences came from?" she asked suddenly.

"Differences?"

"Irina. Me. Elena. The spell was supposed to make us copies, but we're not. Obviously. Don't you wonder how Elena and I came out differently, from her and from each other?"

He shifted, not altogether comfortable with this conversation. He had, of course, wondered that many times. It had been such a deep shock to see her when Klaus had brought her home, a perfect twin to Irina. As he'd watched her, seen what she was like, shock had turned to disappointment, disappointment to disillusionment, and so forth until the whole thing had become a deeply personal affront to him, painful and bitter, with a veneer of regret over it all that things couldn't be different. When he had looked at her he had ceased to even see _her_, really; he had seen only his own pain.

Oh yes, he had certainly wondered. Had he known then what he knew now, about her bastard, about her exile from her childhood home, would that knowledge have changed anything between them?

He cleared his throat. "I presume the causes are environmental. An interesting footnote in the argument of nature versus nurture. Something that shifted, something that got broken along the way." He studied her, sitting there, so unaccustomedly introspective. "Who broke you, Katerina?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, and he saw some of that banked fire come roaring back to life in them. She hopped down off the wall and approached him, arms crossed in front of her, stopping only when she was directly in front of him, toe to toe. "If I'm so broken, why is it that_ I'm_ the one who's still standing?"

The appearance – _finally!_ – of Andie and Jeremy put an end to the conversation. Andie made quick work of the glamour spell. When she was finished, he had to admit, inwardly, to being impressed. Had he not known, he... well, wouldn't have known. He hoped that the glamour he had asked Bonnie to do had been just as impressive. "Remember," Andie warned, "don't say any more than you have to on the way over. Though your voices will be disguised, as well as your looks, your words could give you away."

With that, Elijah sent Jeremy and Katerina out front, toward the vehicles. "One moment," he told Andie, stopping her from following with a hand on her arm. "I assume that Klaus has been fully informed on tonight's plan," he said, once the others had disappeared around the house.

He saw her swallow once, though she didn't let any reaction reach her eyes. "What are you talking about?"

Elijah put his hands on her shoulders, a friendly gesture on the face of it, but with an implied threat underneath. "Andie, Andie, Andie. I'm not upset with you. I _counted_ on you sharing our little bait-and-switch with Klaus. However, before the rest of the evening proceeds, there is a little tidbit of information _I_ should share with _you_." He leaned in, close to her ear. "I have your son."

Andie jerked away from him, shocked and suspicious. She shook her head. "You're lying. There's no way."

"Granted, I had to call in quite a few markers to pull it off. But I assure you: the boy is under my jurisdiction now." She crossed her arms, clearly in doubt. Elijah sighed, pulling out his phone and dialing. "Sean. Let the boy talk to his mother, please." When he heard the little voice say hello, he passed it to Andie.

She snatched it out of his hands. "Baby, is that you?"

"Hi, Mommy. I'm eating waffles!"

Andie pressed a hand to her mouth, tears filling her eyes. "You are, huh?"

"Uh-huh. We're at the ocean. I made a sand castle today. Are you coming home soon? You should come here. I can show you how to make one too."

"I will, baby. I'll come real soon, okay?"

"Okay. I'm gonna go eat my waffle now."

"All right. Mommy loves you, more than anything in the whole wide world."

"Love you too. Bye Mommy."

Andie ended the call and held the phone out to Elijah, stricken. Two tears escaped as she looked up at him, trembling. Elijah pocketed the phone. "I suggest you consider your actions tonight very carefully. Because they will determine what happens to him from here on out."

She wiped the tears off of her face. "What do you want me to do?"

"Just what we planned. Help Bonnie with the spell work. Counter any spell Klaus's witches try to perform. And tell me whatever you know about Klaus's plans."

"I don't know anything, other than that he'll be there and he'll have his own witches with him. He didn't tell me any details. I don't think he trusted me that far."

"No, I don't suppose he would. But just so we're clear: If I don't check in with your son's sitters tomorrow, they've been ordered to kill him. If you step out of line at any time, I will send them a signal and they will kill him on the spot. Please don't think I'll hesitate to do it. Understand?"

"Yeah."

"Good." He gestured her forward. "Then we're ready."

* * *

The burial grounds were no more inviting now, just before nightfall, than they had been during the middle of the day. What little conversation had been taking place was quickly silenced as they marched down the path toward the clearing, Elijah carrying Caroline, who was playing possum as though unconscious, the supposed vampire sacrifice. Elijah had that same sense of being watched and whispered over as he had the first time, and every now and then he'd catch something out of his peripheral vision, something that wasn't there when he turned and looked in full. Judging by the silence and the general nervousness of the rest of the group, he surmised that he was not the only one.

They had all donned long, hooded robes, the better to conceal their identities, at least from a quick glance. Elijah knew that, thanks to Andie, Klaus would know who all of the players were, and that they truly had no intention of breaking the curse. But he also knew that Klaus would not be able to resist the gathering of all the necessary components, even though he expected to walk into an ambush. He would think himself well-prepared for it, having been briefed by Andie on what to expect. Which is why Elijah hadn't shared the important details with her.

When they reached the clearing, Elijah bound Caroline to a tree with a pre-weakened chain; when the situation warranted, she would "wake up" and break free of it. Elena, as though compelled to do so, walked to the altar and lay upon it. From the confines of his cloak, Elijah pulled out the dagger and handed it to Jeremy, in his Katerina guise. To Katerina, he handed a large syringe of the concentrated vervain oil. Jules, still knocked out from the wolfsbane infusion, lay in her cage, unconscious; every now and then, her body would twitch violently, starting the transformation without waiting for her mind to realize it.

With everyone in position, he waited until the sun had disappeared below the horizon, then took his place beside the altar. A piercing cry split the air as Jules jerked upright in the cage, her spine rippling as her body started the more active phase of the transformation. During that momentary distraction, Klaus stepped into the clearing.

Elijah nodded to him. _And we're underway at last._ "I wondered if you would make it."

"Oh, I wouldn't have missed it for the world." He glanced around the circle at the figures standing, shrouded in cloaks. "Did you bring refreshments?"

"Perhaps later." A sickening crunch came from the cage, followed by another scream as one of Jules's legs broke and reassembled itself. "I think the time has arrived. I hope you enjoy the show."

With a mock bow, Elijah walked to the altar, standing to one side of it as Bonnie took her place across from him, on the other. He removed the moonstone from an inner pocket of his coat and placed it next to Elena on the altar, then withdrew a large knife. As Bonnie began to chant, Elijah raised the knife up and prepared to plunge it into Elena's chest.

"You know," Klaus called, before he could bring the knife down, "I've never really been much of a spectator. I prefer to take a more... participatory role."

A wall of force hit Elijah and sent him crashing into the tree line. Four figures, Klaus's witches he presumed, rushed into the circle. The sounds of struggle in the woods told him that Damon was handling another couple. He jumped up to rush back toward the altar, but bounced off of an invisible barrier. Glancing around wildly, he saw one of the four witches who had made it into the circle chanting, arms raised. Across the way, Damon bounced up against the barrier from the other side. Alaric, perched in a tree outside the circle, had no shot at Klaus now.

Inside the circle, Klaus moved in a blur to stand directly in front of 'Katerina.' "Good evening, my dear," he purred, and cupped 'her' face in his hands. "How lovely to see you again." A split second later, he snapped Jeremy's neck.

"NO!" Bonnie shouted, leaving off her show of chanting. She made a rush toward Klaus, only to be grabbed and forced down by another witch. Elena sat up on the altar and would have hopped down had Klaus not noticed and sped over there, slamming her back down on her back with a hand to her chest. Elijah cursed inwardly. The damn fool boy must have clued the girls in on the switch, probably not wanting them to panic if something had happened to Katerina while she was in the guise of Jeremy. Now they faced just the situation Elijah had hoped to avoid.

In the center of the circle, Klaus picked up the knife Elijah had dropped and raised it over Elena. Another of his witches stepped up to the other side and began chanting in earnest. Elijah recognized her from photographs: Greta Martin. Contrary to what Jonas had believed, she looked to be a willing accomplice to Klaus's plans.

Caroline, picking her moment, chose the wrong target by rushing Klaus instead of taking out his witch. Klaus swatted her away as though she were a fly. "Secure that vampire," he called to one of his warlocks, who held her pinned to the ground by some sort of magic. Turning back to the altar, Klaus raised his arms, then brought the knife down and plunged it into Elena.

Elijah hurled himself uselessly against the barrier, the scene before him taking on an almost surreal quality as his mind drifted back and forth from what was in front of him to an oh-so-similar scene a thousand years ago, when he had tried again and again, without success, to save Irina. He could see Damon, across the clearing, doing the same thing in a frenzy to get to Elena. Klaus bent and drank from the wound, blood smearing his lips and chin when he stood back upright. Greta took the moonstone from the altar, smeared it in Elena's blood, and started her spell.

Pressed as he was against the barrier, its sudden disappearance sent Elijah sprawling forward. He was back on his feet in an instant, searching the circle for Andie, who had just downed the witch who had put the barrier in place. He caught her eye and tilted his head toward Bonnie, indicating that she should go and help her so that they could wrest control from Greta of the spell that would bind Elena's blood to Klaus's.

Stefan charged toward the altar in an attempt to get to Elena, but a whir of grey whipped in from the tree line and bowled him over before he could get there. Elijah glanced at the cage, but Jules, in wolf form, was still trapped inside. Stefan struggled to keep the wolf's jaws from closing over his throat.

Elijah searched for Katerina in her Jeremy guise, and found her writhing in a piece of the chain that had held Caroline to the tree. The chain, controlled by a warlock, had snaked itself around her like a boa constrictor; struggle as she might, she couldn't get the necessary momentum to snap it.

As Elena lay dying, as Katerina and Caroline battled the two warlocks, as Stefan struggled against an uncaged werewolf, as Bonnie and Andie fought Greta for control of the spell, Elijah made a dash for Jeremy's body, which still looked like Katerina, even in his death. He knelt and started rummaging through the pockets of his cloak, looking for a way – any way – to salvage the situation. Hearing someone behind him, he whirled to see one of the warlocks standing over him. "Looking for this?" he asked, and plunged the dagger into Elijah's heart.


	20. Chapter 20

**Since a couple people have pointed out how hard Elijah has been on Stefan, I should probably make the following disclaimer: **_**The thoughts and opinions expressed herein by Original Vampires belong to the Vampires involved, and do not reflect those of the author.**_

**As for the moonstone thing: I had that planned before "Know Thy Enemy" aired, based on Damon's flippant remark from "The Dinner Party." Just sayin.'**

* * *

Elijah knew from experience that he had perhaps a second, no more, before the pain incapacitated him. He used it to surge upward and drive the palm of his hand into the warlock's chin, snapping his head backward and ripping it clean off of his shoulders. His second up, he dropped to his knees and elbows beside the still twitching body as his torso went super-nova.

The syringe – glamoured to look like the dagger – had pierced his heart and delivered nearly all of the vervain concentrate directly into it. That organ pumped once before it blistered and burst, shooting acid through his veins and into his extremities. With the heart ruptured and burning, the vervain oil invaded and coated his lungs, burning through those in turn and leaking air into his chest cavity so that he couldn't even scream in agony. Nerves on fire, chest devoured by acid from the inside out, he could do nothing but cough and gag and retch, spewing blood and fluids and pieces of his internal organs onto the ground, where the whole mess flowed into the river of blood that coursed from the warlock's body. Some small, detached part of his mind remarked snidely that he had been the one to tell them to concentrate the vervain, and had asserted that it would provide only a momentary distraction at best.

It was _one fucking hell_ of a distraction.

He had no way of judging how long he was down, but the first thing to enter his awareness as the pain subsided and his insides started to pull themselves back together was the sound of rifle fire. He looked across the clearing toward the center, where the altar stood, and saw Klaus's body jerk from the impact as three darts pierced his back, in rapid succession. Alaric's aim had been true.

Taking advantage of Klaus's distraction as he reached to pluck the projectiles from his back, Andie spoke a few words and gestured; when Klaus turned back toward the altar and Elena, he came up hard against an invisible barrier. He turned, only to fetch up on all sides, Andie's shield apparently walling him off from everyone.

At the other end of the clearing from Elijah, Caroline roused herself from whatever the witch had done to her and charged toward Stefan, where he still fought to keep the werewolf's jaws from closing on any part of him. Hurling herself on top of the writhing animal, she got one arm locked around his neck and fought to pull him back off of Stefan, screaming at him, "Tyler, no!"

Greta was still standing across the altar from Klaus, seemingly unaware of his imprisonment as she chanted her incantation. She stopped suddenly and her eyes jerked open. She reached for the moonstone and took it into her hands, closing her eyes for a moment as she held it. With a shriek of frustration, she opened her eyes again and broke it in half – not the moonstone at all; just a bar of soap. She looked ready to attack Elena, bleeding and unconscious on the altar, until Bonnie grabbed her arm and turned her around.

Not Bonnie. Jonas.

Bonnie's hands grasped Greta's face as she stared intently at her. "Greta, what have you done?" she asked, her voice showing that odd tone and inflection that it had the last time Jonas had taken her over.

"What the hell! Get off of me!" Greta yelled, trying to push Bonnie's arms away from her, but Bonnie held on.

"We thought he took you. We were trying to _save _you, baby girl. You need to stop what you're doing. You need to stop him."

Greta shook her head. "Who the hell are you?"

"It's me, Greta. It's Dad."

"NO!" The witch kicked out hard, pushing Bonnie away from her with a foot to her abdomen. Bonnie lurched backward, her head snapping back painfully as she landed. Greta whirled and grabbed the knife from the altar. Bonnie's eyes went vague for a moment as she battled with Jonas's spirit for control of her body, leaving her wide open and vulnerable to Greta who, in a rage, swung the knife down to impale her.

A blur shot over Bonnie from somewhere to the left, and Elijah heard a loud crack as Damon snapped the witch's spine in half. He didn't even wait for the body to fall before extending his fangs and ripping his own wrist open. He pressed it to Elena's mouth, lifting her unconscious body into a semi-sitting position with his other arm. "Come on, Elena. Drink it! Drink!"

Andie went to her knees as Klaus continued to batter against the walls of his ersatz prison; with each punch that landed on the invisible confines, Andie flinched and sank down a little further, as though each blow pummeled her and not the walls of her spell. Unable to sustain the onslaught, she collapsed finally to the ground, freeing Klaus, who spun toward the altar, where Damon was still trying to revive Elena.

Hurting, but functional, Elijah gathered his legs under him and launched himself at Klaus, jumping over Jeremy's body, which shimmered where it lay, once again taking on the boy's appearance rather than Katerina's. He struck Klaus mid-body, hurtling both of them several yards away from the altar. More or less on top when they rolled to a halt, Elijah drove his fist toward Klaus's face. Klaus deflected the blow and grabbed Elijah's arm, pulling him forward and off balance, using the opportunity to flip Elijah onto his back.

As he rolled, Elijah saw Alaric enter the clearing from the cover of the trees, a pistol in hand. He fired, and the warlock who held Katerina dropped to the ground. Distracted by that scene, reflexes alone – battle-honed over a thousand years – made Elijah dart his head to the side a fraction of a second before Klaus's fist plowed into it. The force of the blow drove Klaus's hand several inches into the soil, sending the displaced dirt up in a plume around them.

Elijah grasped the momentary advantage and flung Klaus off of him, crouching into a fighter's stance as Klaus followed him upright a split second behind him. "Bonnie, now!" he shouted.

Klaus snapped his attention back to the center of the circle as Bonnie pulled herself together and started the incantation to the spell that would bind Klaus's blood to Elena's blood inside of him, her life-force weakening him as it countered the death magic. With a snarl of rage, Klaus lurched toward her; Elijah caught him by the collar and landed a vicious punch to his kidney. Klaus kicked back, his foot connecting with and shattering Elijah's shin.

Elijah held onto Klaus as that leg collapsed out from under him, keeping him from reaching Bonnie. Klaus let the momentum combined with his weight carry him down, so that his knee landed hard right on the broken bone. Elijah let out a yell of pain and tried to flip them so he was on top, but with Klaus crushing down on the break, he couldn't gather himself enough to get the upward thrust he needed. Grinding his teeth together, he shot a hand up to grab Klaus around the throat.

Taking advantage of his exposed side, Klaus plowed a fist into Elijah's ribs, shattering each and every one on that side of his body. He brought his other hand down on Elijah's collar bone; when it snapped, Elijah's fingers went numb, and his hand dropped away from Klaus's throat. Klaus was on his feet in a blur, sneering down at Elijah. "This was your brilliant _strategy_, Elijah? Your _master plan_? Engaging me in a bout of fisticuffs?" He drew one foot back and aimed a vicious kick at Elijah's uninjured side, shattering those ribs too.

Despite the pain of the blows, despite the desperation of the situation, a thought occurred to Elijah: _That kick should have broken me in half and launched me into the woods. He's getting weaker. It's working!_

Movement from behind Klaus drew his gaze. Elijah had to crane his a neck a little to see, shooting a sharp lance of pain through him from the broken collarbone. Moving silently as a ninja, Katerina had her hand raised to strike Klaus, a vervain syringe clutched in her hand.

He gave it no thought whatsoever, just gave way to pure reaction. He would be utterly horrified with himself later, when he realized just how close he had come to losing everything by thwarting his own master plan at the very moment of its culmination. And even then he wouldn't dare examine his motivation too closely. Drawing on his last reserves of strength, he hurled himself sideways and intercepted Katerina before she could strike.

Her momentum carried her down as Elijah took her legs out from under her, and she landed on him, driving the broken ribs into his already abused lungs. The syringe went skittering away as she fell, sprawling. Her knee in his side as she tried to stand only added insult to injury. "What the hell?" she hissed at him, bringing a smirk to Klaus's lips as he looked down on the two of them.

"Well, well, well. Elijah and Katerina: at odds even when they are supposedly working together." He reached down and took Katerina's chin in his hand, helping pull her upright. Once standing, she swatted his hand away. Klaus merely stood smirking at her, daring her to attack. She stood her ground, her body limned in a quivering rage. Its impotence in the face of his power had to be maddening.

"You disappoint me, Katerina. I had hoped for a warmer welcome."

"You shouldn't have. Not after what you did."

"What did I do, pet? Other than plan to sacrifice you?" He leaned toward her. "It was nothing personal, you know."

"Was murdering my entire family _personal_?"

"That?" He _tsked_ at her. "You accuse me falsely. I'm afraid I can't take the credit for that little endeavor."

Lying there, battered and broken, his body working sluggishly to try and heal this latest round of damage, Elijah closed his eyes and waited for Klaus's words to indict him, trying vaguely to figure out when that particular tidbit of information had gone from being something he had planned to taunt Katerina with himself to a secret that he wished to keep hidden. But the words seemed to die on Klaus's lips as an electric charge stole over the circle. Bonnie had finally tapped into the power drenching the burial ground. Suddenly released, it rushed up and into her from everywhere at once, strengthening her voice as she finished her spell, her last incantation almost exultant. A palpable snap whipped through the air as the spell finished.

As the charged feeling faded, Bonnie slid bonelessly to the ground, dropping out of sight behind the altar. Klaus shook his head, falling to his knees as what had to be an unfathomable feeling of weakness stole over him. As he dropped, Elijah saw Andie standing behind him. She had the dagger, unglamoured now that Bonnie was unconscious, grasped firmly in trembling hands. She must have retrieved it from where it had skidded when Elijah had tackled Katerina. With a look of grim determination, she brought it down through Klaus's shoulder and into his heart.

Klaus jerked as though someone had run a live wire through him. Elijah tried to sit up, failed. He locked eyes with Klaus, though, as his flesh started to grey, the veins standing out on his skin. Klaus moved his lips as he tried to speak, but no sound escaped save for guttural noises as he swallowed and breathed his last. It seemed like forever before he finally pitched forward, dead.

Elena, wobbly and pale but somehow conscious, made her way over to him, holding onto Stefan for support. She knelt down next to Elijah, wincing at the twisted mess the injuries had made of his torso. She kept reaching her hands forward as though to touch him, then pulling back, uncertain of how to do so without causing him more pain. He coughed to try and clear his throat, and tasted blood. "Just like that," he whispered to her, letting his eyes drift closed, and his body start to knit the pieces back together.

* * *

Dealing with the aftermath had taken most of the rest of the night, and it wasn't until dawn stole over the landscape that Elijah arrived back at the Salvatore house.

Bonnie, unconscious and unresponsive despite being fed Stefan's blood, had been taken to the hospital by Alaric under some pretext of having been at a sleepover with the girls when she fell ill. Privately, Elijah suspected that medical intervention would be no more effective than the infusion of vampire blood had been, if the cause of her fugue state was what he feared.

Elena and Jeremy had accompanied her to the hospital, along with Caroline; despite her struggles with Tyler Lockwood in his werewolf form, the baby vampire had come out of the experience unmarred, as had Stefan. "I got through to him, I _know_ I did! Maybe I'm, like, a werewolf whisperer or something!" she had enthused. It was as good an explanation as any for why the wolf would suddenly turn away from its quarry when he had it pinned, and bolt back into the woods.

Andie, looking utterly spent, had begged him to call those who held her son. He had done so, alerting them that she would come to retrieve the boy. She had left the clearing as soon as he'd hung up and given her the location.

That had left the four remaining vampires to clean up. They had gathered fallen wood and broken up trees to build a funeral pyre in the clearing, burning the bodies of the witches Klaus had brought with him. Once she'd reverted to human form, Damon had added Jules to the body count and tossed her onto the fire, too.

Klaus lay where he had fallen. Once the bodies were well on their way to burning, Elijah had closed the distance and knelt down beside him, turning him over onto his back. He had straightened his limbs as he waited for the rush of victory, or at least of satisfaction that a foe had been defeated, but none had been forthcoming. The man had, at various times, been his inspiration, his best friend, his leader, his confidante and, on rare occasions, his lover. He had also been a cruel and selfish taskmaster, unreasonable and outrageous in his demands, the murderer of the first – perhaps the only – woman Elijah had loved since he had become a vampire. Perhaps the triumph would come later, when he wasn't so beaten down. Or perhaps he would feel only sadness, for what had been, and what had never been, for what he had only thought existed. But at that moment, staring down at Klaus's lifeless body, there was nothing. Just a weary, bone-deep, aching emptiness. Reaching down, he had pressed thumb and forefinger to Klaus's eyelids, and slid them closed forever.

Damon took one look at Elijah as he entered the living room and sank into a chair, and left the room without a word, returning a few moments later with an oversized mug full of blood. He had at least thought to heat it. Elijah accepted it and drained the mug without comment, which was probably a good indication to Damon of just how wretched he felt, and how low his reserves were.

"Where are Stefan and Katerina?" he asked, setting the empty mug aside.

"Showering and sleeping, respectively."

He sent up a silent thanks to whoever was listening that he wouldn't have to deal with either of them right then, and wished fervently for a shower himself. He had shed his shirt, fouled beyond retrieval with gore from his own body, and thrown it onto the fire. He would need to go over to the Gilbert house to collect his things and change, but he dreaded the thought of encountering Jenna right then, no doubt on her way home after being released from house arrest.

"Is he dead?" Damon asked at length. "Or just... you know."

Elijah leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. "I'm not certain. If the spell weakened him the way we hoped, he should be. But we're not going to take any chances."

"Which brings us to the next question: what exactly are we going to do with him?"

He opened his eyes and picked his head up, gazing out the window. "You seem to have an area in need of landscaping. How would you like to extend the terrace and put in a swimming pool? One that is set on a nice, deep bed of concrete?"

Damon considered for a moment, nodded. "That works."

Elijah sighed deeply and dug out his phone to start the chain of calls he would need to make in order to have a contractor lined up and ready to work within the next few hours.

* * *

He remained at the Salvatores' through the day and into the evening, unwilling to leave without seeing Klaus's body, dagger intact, safely interred in several feet of concrete. He winced at the astronomical price he would have to pay to have the work done 'on demand,' but he would not chance the dagger somehow being removed and Klaus reanimated.

Caroline, perhaps at Damon's behest, took pity on him and brought some clothes over from the Gilbert residence so that he could shower and change. He couldn't remember the last time he had enjoyed a shower so much. He had a bad few moments, though, when he turned the shower off and heard tearing noises coming from the room below where they had stashed Klaus's body. Wrapped in a towel, he bolted down the stairs and careened into the room.

Caroline and Damon were wrapping something around Klaus's body. Caroline looked up and clapped a hand over her eyes. "Oh my God, you're naked!"

Damon merely raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

Elijah sighed and closed his eyes in relief, trying to fend off the encroaching feeling of foolishness. 'I heard noises. I thought…" Well, it was perfectly obvious what he had thought. "What are you doing?" he asked, securing the towel a little more tightly.

"I brought duct tape," Caroline non-explained, not _quite_ looking at him.

"A little added insurance. Don't want anything coming loose when we dump him in the hole," Damon said, pulling another strip off of the roll and nodding his head in the general direction of the back of the house, where noise from the excavators had set up a constant din.

"With that?"

"Hel-_lo_," Caroline said. "It's _duct tape_. You can fix, like, anything with it. Didn't you ever see the book, 101 Uses for Duct Tape? My dad even fixed the engine of our car with it, once." She tilted her head. "Although it did catch on fire a couple of days later." She shrugged. "He's gay."

Elijah rejected any of the possible rejoinders that offered themselves up for consideration, and changed the subject. "What's the word from the hospital?"

"Bonnie still hasn't woken up, at least she hadn't when I left. They're doing a bunch of tests. One of the doctors told her dad that they can't find anything wrong with her, like an injury or anything, but she's in a coma."

It didn't sound good. "Keep me posted," he said, turning to go back upstairs. Only to find Katerina standing there, grinning impishly.

"Nice towel. You should take it off," she suggested.

Caroline rolled her eyes and groaned. "Oh my God, get a room!"

"Excellent suggestion," Katerina agreed. "I happen to have one upstairs."

"Why are you still _here_?" Damon asked her, straightening up.

"Where else would I be?"

"Anywhere _but_ here. Leave."

"Before the big victory celebration?"

"There's a victory celebration?" Caroline perked up.

"No, there is _not _a victory celebration," Damon assured her, somewhat testily.

"Oh, don't be such a bore, Damon. You sound like Stefan," Katerina whined.

"Well then, you should_ love_ that, hmm?"

Elijah backed out of there and went back upstairs to the bedroom whose en suite bath he had used, leaving them to their bickering. Katerina followed him out, though; he was in the room but a moment before she gave a perfunctory knock and let herself in.

He sighed deeply. "Katerina, go away."

Katerina, of course, ignored him. "You gave me the dagger on purpose, so that I would use it on Klaus. Two birds, one dagger. What changed your mind?" she asked, without preamble.

He couldn't even explain it to himself. How was he supposed to explain it to her? "I don't know," he admitted. "Maybe I figured we should see what kind of a life you might build if given a chance."

She didn't look entirely satisfied with the answer, but she let it go. "You should feed," she said, looking him over appraisingly. "You look wrecked."

"I did feed."

"Not enough. That was quite a beating you took."

"Your point?"

"My point," she said, brushing her fingers over his ribs, across his back, as she walked around him, "is that, beating or no, you won. You should celebrate a little." She came back around in front of him, her hand resting suggestively at his waist, just above the towel. "We could make it a private celebration."

The thought occurred to him, unbidden, that perhaps he should just give in. Lose himself in her, stop thinking, surrender his mind to his body and let it rut away the pain, the loss, the emptiness. The indulgence was certainly long overdue. After the ordeal of the last twenty-four hours – hell, of the last several weeks – would it be so wrong if he allowed himself to simply fall, to find some soft place upon which to land?

But this was Katerina; there was nothing soft, or simple, about her. And if he lost himself in her, he might never come out again, not unscathed. Too many had fallen before.

"Katerina," he said, not unkindly, "Go away." Taking her shoulders, he turned her toward the door and walked her out, closing it quietly behind her.

For the first time, it was with a little regret.

* * *

It was well after dark when the first strata of concrete was poured. Consequently, Elijah didn't pull up to the Gilbert house until after 11:00 p.m. He had held out some small hope that everyone would be asleep so that he could grab his things and slip back out with 'them' – meaning 'Jenna' – none the wiser, but luck was clearly having none of it; the downstairs lights were all on when he pulled up in front of the house. He briefly entertained the thought of just going home and coming back later, but he wanted his laptop, and that was in the house. _May as well face the music and have it over with._

He opened and closed the door quietly and zipped past the archway into the living room, heading into the den where he had set up during his brief occupation. He heard footsteps behind him, though, and turned to find Jenna leaning against the doorway, arms crossed. "Seriously? You were just going to sneak past me and not say anything?"

He sighed. "I'd given it some thought, yes." God, he was so tired. "Are Jeremy and Elena still at the hospital?"

"Jeremy is. I talked Elena into coming home and getting some sleep. Well, I convinced Stefan to talk her into coming home and getting some sleep."

"That's good."

Barefoot, she ran her toes over the fringe edging the carpet, pulling the strands straight. "There's no change in Bonnie's condition."

For which she no doubt blamed him. He did. "I know. Caroline checked in a short while ago." He gathered some of the paperwork he had scattered on the desk and dropped it into his briefcase, waiting for the castigation to begin. She just stood there, saying nothing. When he had everything tidied up and more or less packed, he turned and faced her head-on, bracing for what he was sure would come next.

She studied his face. "Wow. You look like… Would it be too on-the-nose to say 'death warmed over?'"

"So I've been told." He snapped his briefcase shut, perhaps harder than he needed to, and pressed his fingers against his eyelids. "Let's get on with it, Jenna. Say what you have to say. Rail at me for kidnapping you, blame me for Bonnie, yell at me for endangering Elena… whichever it is. I'm not up for getting my 'ancient evil vampire' game face on tonight, so let's just have it – "

"Thank you," she interrupted.

He stared at her blankly. "What?"

"That's what I was going to say. Thank you."

"Oh."

"Don't get me wrong. I was good and ready to tear you a new one. Let's see... I spent the first night at your house trying every single door and every single window, only to have Marcus peel me off of them. I spent the next day trying to get one of their phones away from them. The third day, I just up and made a running dash for the door." She rubbed absently at her ribs. "That didn't go well. Then I just had a full-on tantrum." She glanced down, screwing her mouth up to the side. "I, um, hope none of that fancy glassware was worth a lot of money.

"Once I had that out of my system, though, I started to actually think about everything. About having been so clueless, and then just being helpless. I'm not sure which of those was worse, by the way. And about the fact that, even after Isobel showed up on my freaking doorstep, the only one who would tell me everything was you." She crossed her arms, shifting her weight to her other foot.

"I talked with Elena for a long time at the hospital today. She told me about the ritual. I don't know if she told me everything, but if she didn't, I don't think I want to know what she left out." She pulled away from the door frame, coming a few steps into the room. "So: as mad as I was that you locked me up for a week, and as much as it might piss me off to accept it, you were right: I couldn't have done anything to protect her and Jeremy. You did. So thank you."

_And a hell of job I did of it, too_, he thought bitterly. Elena had nearly died; Jeremy _did_ die. Bonnie might still yet. It had been good luck, more than good planning, that had turned things around in the end. He'd seen enough conflicts to know the difference. Not trusting himself to speak, he swallowed, nodded to her, lifted his briefcase. "I should go."

Jenna stopped him with a hand on his arm as he tried to pass. "Wait. Elijah... Before, when I was at your house… why did you kiss me?"

"Why?"

"Was it just to keep me distracted while you waited for my babysitters to arrive?"

"No," he told her, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "That wasn't why."

"Oh." She looked down at her toes, blushing. "Well, in that case…" Jenna took his briefcase and set it on the floor beside the desk, and slid her hands up along his arms until they locked behind his neck, and her lips touched his, warm and gentle.

It was, he thought, a lovely, soft place to land.


	21. Epilogue

**Ba-deep Ba-deep Ba-deep, that's all folks! There may or may not be a sequel forthcoming; it will depend on how the rest of the season rounds out and on how much work I start doing on my original stuff. Although if the flashback of Klaus-Katherine-Elijah is half as yummy as the stills make it look, I may have to delve into the late 15th century for some flashback fic.**

**I hope you've enjoyed my little survive-the-hiatus project. I've had fun with it. Now let's wish that dagger out of Elijah on the show and see some dual (or would that be 'duel') BAMFery, Original style.**

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

Elijah finished ordering his notes and laid them on the immaculate desktop, looking through the wall of windows to his right, out onto the courtyard. The three weeks since the full moon had been an absolute blur of phone calls and paperwork; partially due to playing catch up on the interests he had neglected while in Mystic Falls, and partially due to the details of consolidating all of Klaus's holdings with his own. His right to do so had nothing to do with any legislative statutes and everything to do with the time-honored vampire rule of 'to the victor go the spoils.' The annexing of Klaus's assets, both real and liquid, had significantly swelled his own coffers, depleted below his comfort level by massive expenditures both before and after the ritual. In all honesty, this was no time to take on this new endeavor, but the offer, finalized just the previous evening between himself and the Board, had been too… intriguing to turn down.

Amongst the details he had handled over the past weeks was the disposition of the compound off the coast of Wales, where Klaus had held his cadre of witches. Elijah had issued an edict that they were to be released from any bonds of servitude that Klaus had implemented. He did, however, offer them an option: leave to seek their own livelihoods, or remain and establish an academy of sorts for those who possessed the Gift and who wanted or needed direction in it. Andie had wholeheartedly endorsed the idea and the "collaborative spirit" behind it, even going so far as to campaign on its behalf amongst her peers, so that a respectable portion of the Gifted chose to stay and put their heads together to bring the idea to fruition. She had already dubbed it 'Fogwarts' for the perpetual mist that surrounded the island.

Andie herself had opted to remain in Mystic Falls with her young son and continue in her job with the television station. Once she had heard the whole story, Jenna had forgiven Andie for her part in the deception, and the two had become tighter than ever, bonded over their shared secret knowledge of all things supernatural.

Alaric, unable to sway Jenna to give him another chance, had left town, delighting Elijah but leaving Damon short a drinking buddy. Not that he had much time to spend idling away at the Grill; between overseeing the construction at the boarding house, giving Caroline some reluctant tutelage, and taking on some tasks for Elijah that he hoped would interest the younger vampire in a more formal sort of employment, he was kept busy and (mostly) out of trouble.

Bonnie, at last report, remained in a coma, to the bafflement of her doctors. Elijah had made arrangements for a couple of witches gifted in magical healing to surreptitiously visit her soon to assess what, if anything, might be done for her. Jeremy, Elena and Caroline still took turns sitting with her, talking to her, hoping to somehow break through, but life marched inexorably on, as it was wont to do; school and other obligations started to pull them away and back into the ebb and flow of day-to-day activities.

Stefan had surprised him by stepping up to help Damon with some of the details at the house. So far, the two had avoided coming to blows, though in their usual manner they bickered over everything from what color grout to use to the placement of the outdoor oven that Damon wanted to install. Elijah thought privately that they rather enjoyed the back-and-forth and would have been uncomfortable in the extreme to be forced into any sort of strained civility.

Katerina, after a few days of tormenting the Salvatores, had simply disappeared. Elijah had no doubt that she would reappear in the future, bringing with her the kind of chaos that only she could produce.

A bell sounded, and students started filing into the room. Caroline was third through the door, stopping dead when she saw him and causing the boy behind her to bump into her. She moved aside, in time for Elena and Stefan to come through the door. They paused beside her, the trio shooting him identical 'WTF?' looks. He nonchalantly gestured them toward their seats.

He sat casually behind the desk, his ankle crossed over his knee as he leaned back in the chair, waiting for all of the students to come in and seat themselves. He remained quiet and watchful as they settled themselves; gradually, their conversations dwindled under his gaze until they all sat in silence, looking at him with varying degrees of expectation and apprehension. Once they had all quieted, he stood. "I realize that you've had a series of substitutes over the last few weeks, and I expect that your studies have suffered accordingly. Rest assured that the vacation ends now." He caught the wide-eyed look that Caroline shot at Elena, and smiled. "I'm Elijah Smith," he announced to the room. "Your new full-time history teacher."


End file.
